pt you, my motive, you see, must have been quite
innocent--else I should have gone about it in a very different manner.

"I wanted to see you, that is absolutely all; I was lonely for a
word--even a harsh one--from the sort of man you are. I wanted you to
believe it was in spite of me that Gerald came and played that night.

"He came without my knowledge. I did not know he was invited. And when
he appeared I did everything to prevent him from playing; _you_ will
never know what took place--what I submitted to--

"I am trying to be truthful, Phil; I want to lay my heart bare for
you--but there are things a woman cannot wholly confess. Believe me, I
did what I could. . . . And _that_ is all I can say. Oh, I know what it
costs you to be mixed up in such contemptible complications. I, for my
part, can scarcely bear to have you know so much about me--and what I am
come to. That is my real punishment, Phil--not what you said it was.

"I do not think it is well for me that you know so much about me. It is
not too difficult to face the outer world with a bold front--or to
deceive any man in it. But our own little world is being rapidly
undeceived; and now the only real man remaining in it has seen my gay
mask stripped off--which is not well for a woman, Phil.

"I remember what you said about an anchorage; I am trying to clear these
haunted eyes of mine and steer clear of phantoms--for the honour of what
we once were to each other before the world. But steering a ghost-ship
through endless tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind--a
little more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel.

"And now--with all these madly inked pages scattered across my desk, I
draw toward me another sheet--the last I have still unstained; to ask at
last the question which I have shrunk from through all these pages--and
for which these pages alone were written:

"_What_ do you think of me? Asking you, shows how much I care;
dread of your opinion has turned me coward until this last page.
_What_ do you think of me? I am perfectly miserable about Boots,
but that is partly fright--though I know I am safe enough with such
a man. But what sets my cheeks blazing so that I cannot bear to
face my own eyes in the mirror, is the fear of what _you_ must
think of me in the still, secret places of that heart of yours,
which I never, never understood. ALIXE."

It was a week before he sent his reply-