s to try and recover them. I find it
interesting to write a book about it, but it would be of the kind that
study the processes of my degradation. I should like to write a book
about it, but it would be of the kind that no one would publish.

"I hope I may never by chance see Cecily; I have a horrible conviction
that I should kill her. Why shouldn't I tell you all the truth? My
feeling towards her is a strange and vile compound of passions, but I
believe that hatred predominates. If she were so unfortunate as to come
again into my power, I should make it my one object to crush her to my
own level; and in the end I should kill her. Perhaps that is the
destined close of our drama. Even to you, as I confessed, I felt
murderous impulses. I haven't yet been quite successful in analyzing
this state of mind. The vulgar would say that, having chosen the
devil's part, I am receiving share of the devil's spirit. But to give a
thing a bad name doesn't help one to understand it.

"Don't let this terrify you. I am going away again, to be out of reach
of temptation. I know, I know with certainty, that the end in some form
or other draws near. I have thought so much of Fate, that I seem to
have got an unusual perception of its course, as it affects me. Keep
this letter as a piece of curious human experience. It may be the last
you receive from me."

Something less than a month after this, Edward Spence, examining his
correspondence at the breakfast-table, found a French newspaper,
addressed to him in a hand he recognized.

"This is from Seaborne," he said to Eleanor, as he stripped off the
wrapper.

He discovered a marked paragraph. It reported a tragic occurrence in a
street near the Luxembourg. The husband of an actress at one of the
minor theatres in Paris had encountered his wife's lover, and shot him
dead. The victim was "un jeune Anglais, nomme Elgare."

The sender of this newspaper had also written; his letter contained
fuller details. He had seen the corpse, and identified it. Could he do
anything? Or would some friend of Mrs. Elgar come over?

Eleanor carried the intelligence first of all to Roehampton. In her
consultation with the Mallards, it was decided that she, rather than
Miriam, should visit Cecily. She left them with this purpose.

It was possible that Cecily had already heard. On arriving at the
house, Eleanor was at once admitted, and went up to the sitting-room on
the second floor; she entered with a tre