e? Only walked more deeply into his quixotism and seriously
compromised the woman he loved.

He had said that she was his wife. It gave him a little thrill to
remember that a dozen of his acquaintances had heard him say it, and
were probably even now spreading the story of his marriage far and
wide.

He paced up and down the room. He had failed all round; even love and
desperate desire had not been able to help him.

He thought suddenly of June; June who, with all her bluntness, had a
great heart and a deep understanding.

She would not want explanations; she would know why he had done it,
and sympathise.

But June was obviously not the one concerned. It was not to June that
he must confess.

The clock in his room struck twelve; too late to do anything to-night.
The memory of Marie returned--Marie as she had looked when he found
her in the drawing-room that night; as she had looked when he had left
her in the little anteroom at the Hoopers' and gone out with murder in
his heart to find Ashton.

He stopped dead in his pacing.

"Oh, you cad--you cad!" he said with a groan.

Life was an intolerable, purposeless thing. He sat down at his desk
and leaned his head in his hands. His whole life seemed to spell
failure. With sudden impulse he seized a pen and began to write.

For the first few moments he hardly knew what he wrote. It was only
when he reached the end of the first page that he seemed to realise
with a start what he had done. He looked back at the written lines
with something of a shock. There was no beginning to the letter, no
date or address; it simply started off as if the pen had been guided
by some influence outside himself, some desperate need.

"I don't know what you will think when you get this letter. I am
writing it because to-night I think I am half mad. I love you so
much; there seems nothing in the whole world that counts any more
now that I am beginning to understand that I can never have you.
Esther, I ask you on my knees to listen to what I have to say. I
have tried to keep away from you, to forget you; I've tried to put
you out of my heart and persuade myself that I do not care--but
it's no use. I love you; I know you care something for me, but I
shall love you always. To-night I have done an unpardonable thing
for your sake. I explain things so badly. I can only hope that you
will understand and try to make some excuse for me. Some one knows
we were together