to his thinking
was vile as a man could be. As to that there was no doubt. That was
declared. How different must she have been from that creature whom
he had fancied that he had loved, when she would have willingly
consented to be the wife of such a man? And this had been done within
a year,--as he said. And then she had married him, telling him
nothing of it, though she must have known that he would discover it
as soon as she was his wife. It suited her to be his wife,--for some
reason which he could not perceive. She had achieved her object;--but
not on that account need he live with her. It had been an affair of
money, and his money she might have.

He came back and got his horse, as the motion of walking was not fast
enough for him in his passion. It was grievous to be borne,--the fact
that he had been so mistaken in choosing for himself a special woman
as a companion of his life. He had desired her to be all honour, all
truth, all simplicity, and all innocence. And instead of these things
he had encountered fraud and premeditated deceit. She was his wife
indeed;--but not on that account need he live with her.

And then his curiosity was raised. What was the secret between them?
There must have been some question of money, as to which at the last
moment they had disagreed. To his thinking it was vile that a young
woman should soil her mind with such thoughts and marry or reject
a man at the last moment because of his money. All that should be
arranged for her by her friends, so that she might go to her husband
without having been mixed in any question of a sordid matter. But
these two had probably found at the last moment that their income
was insufficient for their wants, and therefore his purse had been
thought convenient. As all these things, with a thousand others,
passed through his mind he came to the determination that at any rate
they must part.

He came home, and before he ate his dinner he wrote to her that
letter, of which the contents shall now be given. It was a most
unreasonable letter. But to him in his sorrow, in his passion, it
seemed that every word was based upon reason.

DEAR CECILIA, [the letter ran]

I need hardly tell you that I was surprised by the facts
which you at last told me this morning. I should have
been less pained, perhaps, had they come to me in the
first instance from yourself instead of from Sir Francis
Geraldine. But I do not know that the conclusion t