ance sounded on its way to the scene of an
accident.

It was Mathilde who ordered her dinner and pressed her to eat. But
she had no heart for food. In her bright sitting-room, with the shades
tightly drawn, an inexpressible loneliness assailed her. A large
engraving of a picture of a sentimental school hung on the wall: she
could not bear to look at it, and yet her eyes, from time to time, were
fatally drawn thither. It was of a young girl taking leave of her lover,
in early Christian times, before entering the arena. It haunted Honora,
and wrought upon her imagination to such a pitch that she went into her
bedroom to write.

For a long time nothing more was written of the letter than "Dear Uncle
Tom and Aunt Mary": what to say to them?

"I do not know what you will think of me. I do not know, to-night,
what to think of myself. I have left Howard. It is not because he
was cruel to me, or untrue. He does not love me, nor I him. I
cannot expect you, who have known the happiness of marriage, to
realize the tortures of it without love. My pain in telling you
this now is all the greater because I realize your belief as to the
sacredness of the tie--and it is not your fault that you did not
instil that belief into me. I have had to live and to think and to
suffer for myself. I do not attempt to account for my action, and I
hesitate to lay the blame upon the modern conditions and atmosphere
in which I lived; for I feel that, above all things, I must be
honest with myself.

"My marriage with Howard was a frightful mistake, and I have grown
slowly to realize it, until life with him became insupportable.
Since he does not love me, since his one interest is his business,
my departure makes no great difference to him.

"Dear Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom, I realize that I owe you much
--everything that I am. I do not expect you to understand or to
condone what I have done. I only beg that you will continue to
--love your niece,

"HONORA."

She tried to review this letter. Incoherent though it were and
incomplete, in her present state of mind she was able to add but a few
words as a postscript. "I will write you my plans in a day or two, when
I see my way more clearly. I would fly to you--but I cannot. I am going
to get a divorce."

She sat for a time picturing the scene in the sitting-room when they
should read it, and a longing which was almo