ng I implore, is to go
away on any pretext you like and without seeing me again. To put it
perfectly plainly, Harry, I have changed entirely since last night.
I see everything differently. Everything _is_ different. Forgive
me, but I don't wish to see you any more. "VALENTIA.

"P.S.--I will send your photographs and other things to the studio.
I should like you to burn mine, but do not send them back. I don't
want to look at anything that reminds me of you. Do not be angry--I
can't help it. I am so unhappy.

V.

"If you don't go I know I shall be seriously ill."

After reading this letter Harry was probably about a thousand times more
in love with Valentia than he had ever been in his life. Indeed, he felt
that he had never cared for her before. He pretended even to himself to
laugh at it, and walked up and down his room, saying to himself: "What a
couple! What a woman! What a man! They're unique. No, they're too
wonderful!"

But he didn't succeed in deceiving himself. He _knew_ that letter was
final. He did not give it up at once. He wrote her three letters. The
first, one of indignant reproach: "_You never really cared for me_," and
so forth, which she did not answer; the second, witty and trivial, with
allusions to mountains and molehills and tragedy queens; the third,
desperately imploring her to see him once before he went away. To the
third one she sent a reply, simply saying--

"Please, please go as soon as possible."

After all his emotion and passionate correspondence it was by this time
only about half-past ten. Harry packed, dressed, and went off to the
station, mad with rage. He left no word for Romer at all. He felt he had
better leave all that to the wife. He had lost her absolutely and for
ever--and Miss Walmer too.

In prompt response to his wire Van Buren met him at the station.

And what a wonderful consolation it was to tell him all about it!

Certainly no man ever had a better audience; no one more impressed,
shocked, delighted, horrified, amused, grieved, pleased and sympathetic
ever listened to a confidence. For Van Buren it was as good as a _cause
celebre_, a musical comedy, a _feuilleton_ in the _Daily Mail_ and a
series of snapshots from the homes of the upper classes--all in one.
Never in his life had he heard anything so intensely English. The story
gave him the acute, objec