had known so well how to describe,--could
it be that he should have had every thought concerning her changed
in a moment, and that from believing her to be all pure and all
innocent, he should have come to regard her as a thing so vile as
that? She almost tore her hair in her agony as she said that it
must be so. He had told her that his respect, his esteem, and his
veneration, had all passed away. She could never consent to live with
him trusting solely to his love without esteem.

But as the evening passed away and the night came, and as the
duration of the long hours of the day seemed to grow upon her, and as
no tidings came to her from her lord, she began to tell herself that
it was unbecoming that she should remain without knowing her fate.
The whole length of the tedious day had passed since he had left her
and had condemned her to breakfast in solitude. Then she accused
herself of having been hard with him during that interview, of having
failed to submit herself in repentance, and she told herself that if
she could see him once more, she might still whisper to him the truth
and soften his wrath. But something she must do. She had dismissed
her maid for the last time, and sat miserably in her room till
midnight. But still she could not go to bed till she had made some
effort. She would at any rate write to him one word. She got up
therefore and seated herself at the table with pen and ink before
her. She would write the whole story, she thought, simply the whole
story, and would send it to him, leaving it to him to believe or to
disbelieve it as he pleased. But as she bent over the table she felt
that she could not write such a letter as that without devoting an
entire day to it. Then she rapidly scrawled a few words:--

DEAREST GEORGE,--Come to me and let me tell you
everything.--Your own CECILIA.

Then she addressed it to him and put it under her pillow that she
might send it to him as soon as she should wake in the morning.
Having done so she got into her bed and wept herself asleep.

When the girl came into the room in the morning she at once asked
after her husband. "Is Mr. Western up yet?" The maid informed her
with an air of grave distress that Mr. Western had risen early and
had been driven away from the house to catch a morning train. More
than that the girl could not say. But she believed that a letter had
been left on the library table. She had heard John say that there was
such a lette