en interrupted at home."

He caught then a little tremor in her voice and was grateful for it. She
_did_ feel a little that this was important for him; she sympathized
perhaps more than he should have expected.

"Let's come straight to the point, Miss Rand," he said, "you have a
message for me."

She nodded, felt in the pocket of her dress and produced an envelope,
which she gave him.

"She thought it better that I should give it you like this because then
I could say something as well--something she had asked me to say----"

His hand trembled as he saw the writing on the envelope--"Francis
Breton, Esq., 24 Saxton Square"--During what months and months he had
longed for that handwriting and how often had he imagined that letter
lying, just as it lay now, in his hand--

He read it, Lizzie walking gravely at his side--

"This letter is not easy to write and you must realize that and
forgive me if I have not put things properly. These last weeks
have all made such a demand on me that I'm tired out....

"I said once, Francis dear, that I would not write to you until
I meant to come to you. Now I have broken my word--This is to
tell you that everything, anything, that we have felt for one
another must be ended, now and for ever.

"Don't think that I am angry with you for writing to me. Perhaps
I should have been, but I understood--Only now all my life must
be always, entirely, devoted to my husband. That is now all
that I live for. I feel as though in some way I had been
responsible for the disaster; at any rate his bravery and pluck
are wonderful and it is a small thing that I can do to make his
life as easy as I can, but it will take the whole of me.

"Perhaps after a time we shall meet--one day be friends--I can't
look ahead or look back; I only know that I am now absolutely,
entirely, my husband's--

"Don't hate me for this--it was taken out of our hands. I've
asked Lizzie Rand to give you this. She knows everything and it
would make me happy to think that you two had become great
friends."

They had crossed the little bridge, left behind them the strange birds
that chattered beneath it, and had passed into the wide green spaces,
often given up to cricket or football, now empty of any human being--the
Zoological Gardens, a deserted bandstand, a fringe of trees on which the
first tiny leaves were showing