ly.' He left his room the
moment he heard me. The woman followed me out into the passage to meet
him. She made him a low courtesy. He turned deadly pale the moment he
set eyes on her. That frightened me. I said to him, 'For God's sake,
what does this mean?' He took me by the arm, and he answered: 'You shall
know soon. Go back to your gardening, and don't return to the house till
I send for you.' His looks were so shocking, he was so unlike himself,
that I declare he daunted me. I let him take me as far as the garden
door. He squeezed my hand. 'For my sake, darling,' he whispered, 'do
what I ask of you.' I went into the garden and sat me down on the
nearest bench, and waited impatiently for what was to come.

"How long a time passed I don't know. My anxiety got to such a pitch at
last that I could bear it no longer. I ventured back to the house.

"I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went close to the
parlor door, and still there was silence. I took courage, and opened the
door.

"The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. It was in my
husband's handwriting, and it was addressed to me. I opened it and read
it. The letter told me that I was deserted, disgraced, ruined. The woman
with the fiery face and the impudent eyes was Van Brandt's lawful wife.
She had given him his choice of going away with her at once or of being
prosecuted for bigamy. He had gone away with her--gone, and left me.

"Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. I had no
friends. I was alone in the world, without a creature near to comfort or
advise me. And please to bear in mind that I have a temper which feels
even the smallest slights and injuries very keenly. Do you wonder at
what I had it in my thoughts to do that evening on the bridge?

"Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to destroy myself if
I could only have burst out crying. No tears came to me. A dull, stunned
feeling took hold like a vise on my head and on my heart. I walked
straight to the river. I said to myself, quite calmly, as I went along,
'_There_ is the end of it, and the sooner the better.'

"What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I may get on to the
next morning--the morning when I so ungratefully left you at the inn by
the river-side.

"I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the first conveyance that
I could find to take me, and this was the fear that Van Brandt might
discover me if I remained in Perthshire