will forget even to think that I may love you still
to-morrow, and think tenderly of you on the day after that.

"You are free now, dear, and can begin your real life. How do I
know it? Del Ferice has told me that he has released you--for we
sometimes speak of you. He has even shown me a copy of the legal
act of release, which he chanced to find among the papers he had
brought. An accident, perhaps. Or, perhaps he knows that I loved
you. I do not care--I had a right to, then.

"So you are quite free. I like to think that you have come out of
all your troubles quite unscathed, young, your name untarnished,
your hands clean. I am glad that you answered the letter I wrote to
you from Egypt and told me all, and wrote so often afterwards. I
could not do much beyond give you my sympathy, and I gave it
all--to the uttermost. You will not need any more of it. You are
free now, thank God!

"If you think of me, wish me peace, dear--I do not ask for anything
nearer to happiness than that. But I wish you many things, the
least of which should make you happy. Most of all, I wish that you
may some day love well and truly, and win the reality of which you
once thought you held the shadow. Can I say more than that? No
loving woman can.

"And so, good-bye--good-bye, love of all my life, good-bye dear,
dear Orsino--I think this is the hardest good-bye of all--when we
are to meet so soon. I cannot write any more. Once again, the
last--the very last time, for ever--I love you.

"MARIA CONSUELO."

A strange sensation came over Orsino as he read this letter. He was not
able at first to realise much beyond the fact that Maria Consuelo was
actually married to Del Ferice--a match than which none imaginable could
have been more unexpected. But he felt that there was more behind the
facts than he was able to grasp, almost more than he dared to guess at.
A mysterious horror filled his mind as he read and reread the lines.
There was no doubting the sincerity of what she said. He doubted the
survival of his own love much more. She could have no reason whatever
for writing as she did, on the eve of her marriage, no reason beyond the
irresistible desire to speak out all her heart once only and for the
last time. Again and again he went over the passages which struck him as
most strange. Then the truth flashed upon him. Mar