mes if I ought to be angry as well as sorry over that
letter of yours. It was audacious, wasn't it? Only I know so well that
you did not mean to hurt me when you wrote it. But, Piers, what I said
before, you compel me to say again. This thing must stop. You say you are
not a boy, so I shall not treat you as such. But indeed you must take my
word for it when I tell you that I shall never marry again.

"I want to be quite honest with you, so you mustn't think that my two
years of married life were by any means idyllic. They were not. The man I
married was a failure, but I loved him, and because I loved him I
followed him to the world's end. We were engaged two years before we
married. My father disapproved; but when he died I was left lonely, so I
followed Eric, whom I had not seen for eighteen months, to Australia. We
were married in Sydney. He had work at that time in a shipping-office,
but he did not manage to keep it. I did not know why at first. I was
young, and I had always led a sheltered life. Then one night I found that
he had been drinking, and after that I understood--many things. I think I
know what you will say of him when you read this. It looks so crude
written. But, Piers, he was not a bad man. He had this one fatal
weakness, but he loved me, and he was good to me nearly always."

Piers' teeth closed suddenly and fiercely on his lower lip at this point;
but he read on grimly with no other sign of indignation.

"Do you remember how I took upon myself once to warn you against losing
your self-control?" The handwriting was not quite so steady here; the
letters looked hurried, as if some agitation had possessed the writer. "I
felt I had to do it, for I had seen a man's life completely wrecked
through it. I know he was one of the many that go under every day, but
the tragedy was so near me. I have never quite been able to shake off the
dreadful memories of it. He was to all outward appearance a strong-willed
man, but that habit was stronger, though he fought and fought against it.
When he failed, he seemed to lose everything,--self-respect,
self-control, strength of purpose,--everything. But when the demon left
him, he always repented so bitterly, so bitterly. I had a little money,
enough to live on. He used to urge me to leave him, to go back to
England, and live in peace. As if I could have done such a thing! And so
we struggled on, making a desperately hard fight for it, till one awful
night when he came ho