"I
can't say anything, I must think. Leave me for to-night."

The detective got up slowly, whistled in a significant manner, and left
the room.

"Now, if Jim Hardy is quixotic enough to marry Louisa Clay after what I
have said, I'll never speak to a good man again as long as I live," he
muttered.

But Jim Hardy had not made up his mind how to act at all; he was simply
stunned. When he found himself alone he sank down on a chair close to
his little center table, put his elbows on the table, and buried his
head in his big hands. The whole bewildering truth was too much for
him. He was honest and straight himself, and could not understand
duplicity. Louisa's conduct was incomprehensible to him. What should
he do now? Should he be true to one so false? This question began
dimly to struggle to obtain an answer in his mind. He had scarcely
begun to face it, when a knock at the door, and the shrill voice of his
landlady calling out, "I have got a letter for you, Mr. Hardy, you are
in favor with the post to-night," reached him.

He walked across the room, opened the door, and took the letter from
the landlady's hand. She gave him a quick, curious glance; she saw
shrewdly enough that something was worrying him.

"Why do he go and marry a girl like that Clay creature?" she muttered
to herself as she whisked downstairs. "I wouldn't have her if she had
double the money they say he's to get with her."

Jim meanwhile stared hard at the writing on his letter. It was in
Louisa Clay's straggling, badly formed hand. He hastily tore open the
envelope, and read the brief contents. They ran as follows:

"DEAR JIM,--I dare say you have heard something about me, and I don't
go for to deny that that something is true. I was mad when I did it,
but, mad or sane, it is best now that all should be over between you
and me. I couldn't bear to marry you, and you knowing the truth. Then
you never loved me--any fool could see that. So I am off out of
London, and you needn't expect to see me any more.

"Yours no longer,
"LOUISA CLAY."

Jim's first impulse when he had read this extraordinary and unexpected
letter was to dance a hornpipe from one end of the room to the other;
his next was to cry hip, hip, hurrah in a stentorian voice. His last
impulse he acted upon. He caught up his hat and went out as fast as
ever he could. With rapid strides he hurried through the crowded
streets, reached the Bank, and present