owly the heavy minutes followed each other, and still
there were no signs of my husband's return. We tried to continue
our conversation, and failed. Nothing was audible; no sounds but the
ordinary sounds of the street disturbed the dreadful silence. Try as I
might to repel it, there was one foreboding thought that pressed closer
and closer on my mind as the interval of waiting wore its weary way on.
I shuddered as I asked myself if our married life had come to an end--if
Eustace had really left me.

The Major saw what Benjamin's slower perception had not yet
discovered--that my fortitude was beginning to sink under the unrelieved
oppression of suspense.

"Come!" he said. "Let us go to the hotel."

It then wanted nearly five minutes to the half-hour. I _looked_ my
gratitude to Major Fitz-David for sparing me those last minutes: I could
not speak to him or to Benjamin. In silence we three got into a cab and
drove to the hotel.

The landlady met us in the hall. Nothing had been seen or heard of
Eustace. There was a letter waiting for me upstairs on the table in our
sitting-room. It had been left at the hotel by a messenger only a few
minutes since.

Trembling and breathless, I ran up the stairs, the two gentlemen
following me. The address of the letter was in my husband's handwriting.
My heart sank in me as I looked at the lines; there could be but one
reason for his writing to me. That closed envelope held his farewell
words. I sat with the letter on my lap, stupefied, incapable of opening
it.

Kind-hearted Benjamin attempted to comfort and encourage me. The Major,
with his larger experience of women, warned the old man to be silent.

"Wait!" I heard him whisper. "Speaking to her will do no good now. Give
her time."

Acting on a sudden impulse, I held out the letter to him as he spoke.
Even moments might be of importance, if Eustace had indeed left me. To
give me time might be to lose the opportunity of recalling him.

"You are his old friend," I said. "Open his letter, Major, and read it
for me."

Major Fitz-David opened the letter and read it through to himself. When
he had done he threw it on the table with a gesture which was almost a
gesture of contempt.

"There is but one excuse for him," he said. "The man is mad."

Those words told me all. I knew the worst; and, knowing it, I could read
the letter. It ran thus:

"MY BELOVED VALERIA--When you read these lines you read my farewell
words. I return to