uld feed myself very handily from an
ever-increasingly varied _menu_, I asked suddenly if she had heard
from Roger lately.

"Yes," she said promptly, "only yesterday. I was waiting till you
asked. Before I give you the letter I must tell you that they are no
longer in Paris: they have gone back to America."

"America?" I echoed vaguely, with a half-shocked consciousness that I
did not care very much one way or the other where they were.

"Yes, Mr. Bradley came in the day before they sailed, but you were far
too ill to see him. At the same time I saw no reason why you should
not pull through, and told him so. Mrs. Bradley suddenly expressed a
wish to go to her old home, and though for some reasons they did not
like to let her begin a sea voyage, for other reasons they wanted to
gratify her. She grew quite determined and they decided to allow it.
You know she expects her baby in June."

"Yes I know," I said quietly. I remembered the man who had tramped the
wet lanes, but to-day he seemed to me a wicked fool, justly punished
for his folly. For I knew, though no one had told me, that I should
never be the same after this sickness. The very fibres of my soul had
been twisted and burned in that white-hot furnace of my delirium, and
though Nature might forgive me, she could never forget. Every winter
she would take her toll, every damp season she would audit my account,
after every exposure or fatigue she would lightly tap some shrinking
nerve and whisper "Remember!" A passion whose strength I had never
suspected had brought me to this bed, and in this bed that same
passion had struggled and shrivelled and died. It was with no mock
philosophy that I thought of Margarita. No, the fool knew his folly
now. But it was a folly of which I had no need, I verily believe, to
feel ashamed. It was not that I was the sort of monk we are told the
Devil would be, when he was sick, although my physical weakness may
have lain--God knows!--at the root of it, once. No, I had changed.
Those who have gone through some such change (and I wonder, sometimes,
how many of the passive, unremarkable people I pass on the street, in
the fields, in hotels, have gone through such) know how well I knew
the truth of this matter and how little likely I was to deceive
myself. I loved her, yes, and shall love her while consciousness
remains with me, but it would never again be bitter in my mouth and
black in my heart.

"Let me see the letter, please, Miss