t the eye on the page is not the eye which
reads.

'No bad news, Rowsley?'

The earl's breath fell heavily.

Lady Charlotte left her chair, and walked about the room.

'Rowsley, I 'd like to hear if I can be of use.'

'Ma'am?' he said; and pondered on the word 'use,' staring at her.

'I don't intend to pry. I can't see my brother look like that, and not
ask.'

The letter was tossed on the table to her. She read these lines, dated
from Felixstowe:

'MY DEAR LORD,

'The courage I have long been wanting in has come at last, to break
a tie that I have seen too clearly was a burden on you from the
beginning. I will believe that I am chiefly responsible for
inducing you to contract it. The alliance with an inexperienced
girl of inferior birth, and a perhaps immoderate ambition, has taxed
your generosity; and though the store may be inexhaustible, it is
not truly the married state when a wife subjects the husband to such
a trial. The release is yours, the sadness is for me. I have
latterly seen or suspected a design on your part to meet my former
wishes for a public recognition of the wife of Lord Ormont. Let me
now say that these foolish wishes no longer exist. I rejoice to
think that my staying or going will be alike unknown to the world.
I have the means of a livelihood, in a modest way, and shall trouble
no one.

'I have said, the sadness is for me. That is truth. But I have to
add, that I, too, am sensible of the release. My confession of a
change of feeling to you as a wife, writes the close of all
relations between us. I am among the dead for you; and it is a
relief to me to reflect on the little pain I give . . .'

'Has she something on her conscience about that man Morsfield?' Lady
Charlotte cried.

Lord Ormont's prolonged Ah! of execration rolled her to a bundle.

Nevertheless her human nature and her knowledge of woman's, would out
with the words: 'There's a man!'

She allowed her brother to be correct in repudiating the name of the dead
Morsfield--chivalrous as he was on this Aminta's behalf to the last!--and
struck along several heads, Adderwood's, Weyburn's, Randeller's, for the
response to her suspicion. A man there certainly was. He would be
probably a young man. He would not necessarily be a handsome man. . . .
or a titled or a wealthy man. She might have set eyes on a gypsy
somewhere round Great Marlow--blood to blood; such things