power that you possess will do you socially no good unless you mix
with it the ingredient of ambition--a quality in which I fear you are
very deficient. It is in the hope of stimulating you to a better
opinion of yourself that I write this letter.

'Probably I shall never meet you again. Not that I think
circumstances to be particularly powerful to prevent such a meeting,
rather it is that I shall energetically avoid it. There can be no
such thing as strong friendship between a man and a woman not of one
family.

'More than that there must not be, and this is why we will not meet.
You see that I do not mince matters at all; but it is hypocrisy to
avoid touching upon a subject which all men and women in our position
inevitably think of, no matter what they say. Some women might have
written distantly, and wept at the repression of their real feeling;
but it is better to be more frank, and keep a dry eye.--Yours,
ETHELBERTA.'

Her feet felt cold and her heart weak as she directed the letter, and she
was overpowered with weariness. But murmuring, 'If I let it stay till
the morning I shall not send it, and a man may be lost to fame because of
a woman's squeamishness--it shall go,' she partially dressed herself,
wrapped a large cloak around her, descended the stairs, and went out to
the pillar-box at the corner, leaving the door not quite close. No gust
of wind had realized her misgivings that it might be blown shut on her
return, and she re-entered as softly as she had emerged.

It will be seen that Ethelberta had said nothing about her family after
all.

10. LADY PETHERWIN'S HOUSE

The next day old Lady Petherwin, who had not accompanied Ethelberta the
night before, came into the morning-room, with a newspaper in her hand.

'What does this mean, Ethelberta?' she inquired in tones from which every
shade of human expressiveness was extracted by some awful and imminent
mood that lay behind. She was pointing to a paragraph under the heading
of 'Literary Notes,' which contained in a few words the announcement of
Ethelberta's authorship that had more circumstantially appeared in the
Wessex Reflector.

'It means what it says,' said Ethelberta quietly.

'Then it is true?'

'Yes. I must apologize for having kept it such a secret from you. It
was not done in the spirit that you may imagine: it was merely to avoid
disturbing your mind that I did it so privatel