uite, perhaps! I couldn't bear that; but all I will let
myself wish for is a sweet memory without pain. Don't try to find
me. I must not change my mind, and it would be agony to part from
you if I saw your face and your dear eyes. It is easier and better
this way. And I am going to a place where I shall be as happy as I
can ever be without you.

I shall not send back your ring, for I know you would like me to
keep it; and please keep the few little things I have given you,
unless you would rather not be reminded of me by them.

I cannot send you my heart, because it is with you already and will
be always.

MARY.

She was crying as she finished the letter, and the tears were hot on her
cold cheeks. She tried not to let them fall on the paper, for she did
not want Vanno to know how she suffered. If he realized that her heart
was breaking for him, he might search for her. She was afraid of herself
when she thought what it would be like to resist the pleading of his
voice, his arms, his eyes--"those stars of love," as Marie had said.

The best way to prevent Vanno from guessing where she had gone would be
to have her letter posted by Lord Dauntrey in Monte Carlo to-morrow. And
instead of sending it to Rome, she would address it to him at Cap
Martin. Then he would not have it until he came back to Angelo's house;
and if he meant to disobey and look for her, days must pass before he
was likely to learn of her whereabouts. She believed that no one who
knew her face had seen her in the carriage, driving to Italy. She was
more safely hidden than if she had come to the Chateau Lontana by train;
and she had told Vanno and others that she disliked the idea of living
in Hannaford's house. Before any one thought of this place, she would
perhaps have gone; and though when she began Vanno's letter she had not
decided where to go, before she finished her mind was made up. The one
spot in which she could endure to live out the rest of her life was the
Convent of St. Ursula-of-the-Lake.

"I ought never to have come away," she said. Yet not at the price of
twice this suffering--if she could suffer more--would she blot out from
her soul the experience life had given her. Maybe, she thought, the blow
that shattered her love-story and her happiness was a punishment for
weakness in longing for the world. Yet if it were a pu