ously ineligible; might not she find him irresistible now?

The forgotten terms of their bridal compact came back to Nick: the
absurd agreement on which he and Susy had solemnly pledged their faith.
But was it so absurd, after all? It had been Susy's suggestion (not his,
thank God!); and perhaps in making it she had been more serious than he
imagined. Perhaps, even if their rupture had not occurred, Strefford's
sudden honours might have caused her to ask for her freedom....

Money, luxury, fashion, pleasure: those were the four cornerstones
of her existence. He had always known it--she herself had always
acknowledged it, even in their last dreadful talk together; and once he
had gloried in her frankness. How could he ever have imagined that, to
have her fill of these things, she would not in time stoop lower than
she had yet stooped? Perhaps in giving her up to Strefford he might be
saving her. At any rate, the taste of the past was now so bitter to him
that he was moved to thank whatever gods there were for pushing that
mortuary paragraph under his eye....

"Susy, dear [he wrote], the fates seem to have taken our future in hand,
and spared us the trouble of unravelling it. If I have sometimes been
selfish enough to forget the conditions on which you agreed to marry
me, they have come back to me during these two days of solitude. You've
given me the best a man can have, and nothing else will ever be worth
much to me. But since I haven't the ability to provide you with what you
want, I recognize that I've no right to stand in your way. We must owe
no more Venetian palaces to underhand services. I see by the newspapers
that Streff can now give you as many palaces as you want. Let him have
the chance--I fancy he'll jump at it, and he's the best man in sight. I
wish I were in his shoes.

"I'll write again in a day or two, when I've collected my wits, and can
give you an address. NICK."

He added a line on the subject of their modest funds, put the letter
into an envelope, and addressed it to Mrs. Nicholas Lansing. As he did
so, he reflected that it was the first time he had ever written his
wife's married name.

"Well--by God, no other woman shall have it after her," he vowed, as he
groped in his pocketbook for a stamp.

He stood up with a stretch of weariness--the heat was stifling!--and put
the letter in his pocket.

"I'll post it myself, it's safer," he thought; "and then what in the
name of goodness shall I do