ause
I really care for you.'

'Perhaps I oughtn't to,' he said. 'No, dear; keep it to yourself.' His
delicacy had revived and he was ashamed of his jealousy.

But now she insisted on showing it to him, and he read:

'DEAR BRUCE,

'I'm not going to make any appeal to your feelings with regard to your
mother and the children, because if you had thought even of me a little
this would not have happened. I'm very, very sorry for it. I believe it
happened from your weakness and foolishness, or you could not have
behaved with such irresponsibility, but I'm trying to look at it quite
calmly. I therefore propose to do nothing at all for three months. If I
acted on your suggestion you might regret it ever after. If in three
months you write to me again in the same strain, still desiring to be
free, I will think of it, though I'm not sure that I should do it even
then. But in case you change your mind I propose to tell nobody, not
even your mother. By the time you get this letter, it will be six weeks
since yours to me, and you may look at things differently. Perhaps by
then you will be glad to hear that I have told your mother merely that
you have been ordered away for a change, and I shall say the same to
anyone else who inquires for you. If you feel after this time still
responsible, and that you have a certain duty, still remember, even so,
you might be very unhappy together all your lives. Excuse me, then, if
I don't take you at your word.

'Another point occurs to me. In your hurry and excitement, perhaps you
forgot that your father's legacy depended on the condition that you
should not leave the Foreign Office before you were fifty. That is
about fourteen years from now. If you are legally freed, and marry Miss
Argles, you could hardly go back there. I think it would be practically
impossible under those circumstances, while if you live in Australia
you will have hardly any means. I merely remind you of this, in case
you had forgotten.

'I shall regard it all as an unfortunate aberration; and if you regret
it, and change your mind, you will be free at any time you like to come
back and nothing shall be ever said about it. But I'm not begging you
to do so. I may be wrong; perhaps she's the woman to make you happy.
Let me know within three months how you feel about it. No-one will
suffer except myself during this time, as I shall keep it from your
mother, and shall remain here during this time. Perhaps you will be
ver