ust off." The letter dealt with
nothing more important than the treatment of a pet spaniel which had
been ailing at the time of her flight. But there was a postscript,
squeezed in at the foot of the page; the ink was paler than in the
letter itself. It looked as though the postscript had been added by an
afterthought--perhaps after hesitation--and blotted immediately. "I
still hold my precarious liberty."

The one sentence answered one question--she was not married. There were
things which it left unanswered; her present position and her intentions
for the future lay still in doubt. She held her liberty, but the liberty
was precarious. Here was no material for a reassuring public
announcement; even if I had not been sure that the postscript was meant
for me alone--and of that I was sure--I could only have held my tongue;
it was charged with so fatal an ambiguity, it left so much in the dark.
Yet in its way it was to me full of meaning, most characteristic, most
illuminating--and it fitted in with the picture which my own imagination
had drawn. Out of a tangle of hesitations and doubts she had plunged
into her wild adventure. How far it had carried her it was not possible
to say; but here were the hesitations and doubts back again. After the
impulsive fervor of feeling had had its way with her, the cool and
cautious brain was awake again--awake and struggling. The issue was
doubtful; the liberty to which her mind clung was "precarious"--menaced
and assailed by a potent influence. Past experience made it easy to
appreciate the state in which she was--her wishes on one side, her fears
on the other--her strong inclination to Octon against her obstinate
independence, her feelings crying for surrender, her mental instinct
urging that she should still keep the line of retreat open.

But was it still open in any effective sense? As regards her position,
so far as the opinion of the world--of her world--went, every day barred
it more and more. She must know that; she must realize how her silence
would be interpreted, how no news about her would be confidently
reckoned the worst of news. For Octon she had sacrificed so much that
there was nothing for it but to give him all--to give him even her
liberty, if marriage with him meant the loss of it. There was no other
possible conclusion if she would look at the matter as others looked at
it, if she would use the eyes and ears of Catsford, and see what they
made of her situation. Bu