t no one but
Mrs. Heron ever ventured even to remove the overflowing wastepaper
baskets.

But when Fay came to the Hall she assumed the duty as her right, and
took a great pride and pleasure in her task; and Hugh's first marital
praise was bestowed on the clever little fingers that tidied without
disarranging his cherished papers, and after that the work became her
daily pleasure. But this morning there was an unusual amount of
disorder and confusion. Sir Hugh had sat up late the previous night
sorting and destroying his letters; and not only the baskets but the
floor was heaped with a profusion of torn paper. Fay felt weak and
tired, and she went about her work slowly; but she would not ring for
a servant to help her; it would be a long time before she tidied
Hugh's papers again, she thought. And then her attention was attracted
by an unfinished letter lying at the bottom of the _debris_ which she
first believed had been thrown away by mistake--but on a closer
inspection she found it was torn across. But it was in her husband's
handwriting. Fay never knew why the temptation came to her to read
that letter. A sentence had caught her eye, and an intense wish
suddenly seized her to read the whole and know what it meant.
Afterward she owned that her fault had been a great one; but she was
to pay dearly for her girlish curiosity.

It was a mere fragment, and was apparently the concluding portion of a
long explanatory letter.

"--And now I have told you all frankly, and however much you may
condemn me, at least you will be sorry for me.

"For, indeed, I have done all that a man can do, or at least the best
that is in me, and have only been beaten and humiliated at every turn.
I can do no more. My illness has exhausted me, and taken away all
strength of resistance; and though it may seem cowardly to you, I am
forced to run away, for my present life is unendurable. Just put
yourself in my place, and think what I must suffer.

"So you must not blame me, dear, if I have come to the conclusion that
the same place can not hold us both--at least, not for a time. One or
other of us must leave; and of course it must be I. The misery of it
is too great for my endurance, until I can learn to forget the past;
and, as I have told you before, Margaret"--the word lightly scratched
through and "I" substituted, only Fay never noticed this--"I think it
right to go; and time and absence will help us both. She is so good
and gentle; if s