ric--"

"At the theatre?" said he, with some sudden recalling of his own
surmise.

"You did not regard her, perhaps, towards the end of her part, on
Saturday night?" said Estelle. "I thought once she would fall on the
stage. On the way home I think she was crying--I did not look. Then she
is in this room--oh, so silent and miserable--as one in despair, until I
persuade her to go to sleep until the morning, when she would tell me
her sorrow. Then I was reading; I heard something; I went to the door
there--it was Nina crying, oh, so bitterly; and when I ran to her, she
was wild with her grief. 'My life is broken, Estelle, my life is
broken!' she said--"

But here Estelle herself began to sob, and could not get on with her
story at all; she rose from her chair and began to pace up and down.

"I cannot tell you--it was terrible--"

And terrible it was for him, too, to have this revelation made to him.
Now he knew it was no little quarrel that had sent Nina away; it was
something far more tragic than that; it was the sudden blighting of a
life's hopes.

"Estelle," said he, quite forgetting, "you spoke of a letter she had
left for you; will you show it to me?"

She took it from her pocket and handed it to him. There was no sign of
haste or agitation in these pages; Nina's small and accurate handwriting
was as neat and precise as ever; she even seemed to have been careful of
her English, as she was leaving this her last message, in the dead
watches of the night:

"DEAR ESTELLE" [Nina wrote],--"Forgive me for the trouble I cause
you; but I know you will do what I ask, for the sake of our
friendship of past days. I leave a letter for Mr. Lehmann, and one
for Miss Constance, and a packet for Mr. Moore; will you please
have them all sent as soon as possible? I hope Mr. Lehmann will
forgive me for any embarrassment, but Miss Constance is quite
perfect in the part, and if she gets the letter to-day it will be
the longer notice. I enclose a ring for you, Estelle; if you wear
it, you will sometimes think of Nina. For it is true what I said to
you when you came into my room to-night--I go away in the morning.
I have made a terrible mistake, an illusion, a folly, and, now that
my eyes are opened, I will try to bear the consequences as I can;
but I could not go on the stage as well; it would be too bad a
punishment; I could not, Estelle. I must go, and forget