paths--as country postmen do--and come to the porch. She
heard him fling the bag down on the seat, and turn away towards the
village, without hindering himself for a single pace.

Then the butler opened the door, took up the bag, brought it in, and
carried it up the staircase to place it on the slab by Miss Aldclyffe's
dressing-room door. The whole proceeding had been depicted by sounds.

She had a presentiment that her letter was in the bag at last. She
thought then in diminishing pulsations of confidence, 'He asks to see
me! Perhaps he asks to see me: I hope he asks to see me.'

A quarter to eight: Miss Aldclyffe's bell--rather earlier than usual.
'She must have heard the post-bag brought,' said the maiden, as,
tired of the chilly prospect outside, she turned to the fire, and drew
imaginative pictures of her future therein.

A tap came to the door, and the lady's-maid entered.

'Miss Aldclyffe is awake,' she said; 'and she asked if you were moving
yet, miss.'

'I'll run up to her,' said Cytherea, and flitted off with the utterance
of the words. 'Very fortunate this,' she thought; 'I shall see what is
in the bag this morning all the sooner.'

She took it up from the side table, went into Miss Aldclyffe's bedroom,
pulled up the blinds, and looked round upon the lady in bed, calculating
the minutes that must elapse before she looked at her letters.

'Well, darling, how are you? I am glad you have come in to see me,'
said Miss Aldclyffe. 'You can unlock the bag this morning, child, if you
like,' she continued, yawning factitiously.

'Strange!' Cytherea thought; 'it seems as if she knew there was likely
to be a letter for me.'

From her bed Miss Aldclyffe watched the girl's face as she tremblingly
opened the post-bag and found there an envelope addressed to her in
Edward's handwriting; one he had written the day before, after the
decision he had come to on an impartial, and on that account torturing,
survey of his own, his father's, his cousin Adelaide's, and what he
believed to be Cytherea's, position.

The haughty mistress's soul sickened remorsefully within her when she
saw suddenly appear upon the speaking countenance of the young lady
before her a wan desolate look of agony.

The master-sentences of Edward's letter were these: 'You speak truly.
That we never meet again is the wisest and only proper course. That I
regret the past as much as you do yourself, it is hardly necessary for
me to say.'