in my life. I had
neither friend nor relation, but there was some money which
had been left me soon after my marriage. I lived alone, and
I began to write. That is my story. That is why I cannot
marry you.

"Dear, I want you, now that you know my very ugly history,
to consider this. Whilst I was married, I was faithful to my
husband; since then I have been faithful to my self-respect.
But I have told myself always that if ever the time came
when I should love, I would give myself to that man without
hesitation and without shame. And that time has come, dear.
You know that I love you! Your coming has been the great
awakening joy of my life. Nothing that has gone before,
nothing that the future may hold, can ever trouble me if we
are together--you and I. I have suffered more than most
women. But you will help me to forget it.

"I sit here with my face to the morning, and I seem to see a
new life stretching out before me. Is not love a beautiful
thing! I am not ambitious any more. I do not want any other
object in life than to make you happy, and to be made happy
by you. I began this letter with a heavy heart and with
trembling fingers. But now I am quite calm and quite happy.
I know that you will come to me. You see I have great faith
in your love. Thank God for it!

"BERENICE."

The letter fluttered from Matravers' fingers on to the floor. For
several minutes he stood quite still, with his hand pressed to his
heart. Then he calmly seated himself in a little easy chair which
stood by his side, with its back to the window. He had a curious
sense of being suddenly removed from his own personality,--his own
self. He was another man gazing for the last time upon a very familiar
scene.

He sat there with his head resting upon the palm of his hand, looking
with lingering eyes around his little room, even the simplest objects
of which were in a sense typical of the life which he was abandoning.
He knew that that life, if even its influence had not been wide, had
been a studiously well-ordered and a seemly thing. A touch of that
ultra aestheticism, which had given to all his writings a peculiar tone
and individuality, had permeated also his ideas as to the simplest
events of living. All that was commonplace and ugly and vicious had
ever repelled him. He had lived not only a clean