t was something
one went out--or sent out--to buy in a shop: something concrete and
portable, that Strefford's money could pay for, and that it required no
personal participation to obtain. What a fool the lawyer must think her!
Stiffening herself, she rose from her seat.

"My husband and I don't wish to see each other again.... I'm sure it
would be useless... and very painful."

"You are the best judge, of course. But in any case, a letter from
you, a friendly letter, seems wiser... considering the apparent lack of
evidence...."

"Very well, then; I'll write," she agreed, and hurried away, scarcely
hearing his parting injunction that she should take a copy of her
letter.

That night she wrote. At the last moment it might have been impossible,
if at the theatre little Breckenridge had not bobbed into her box. He
was just back from Rome, where he had dined with the Hickses ("a bang-up
show--they're really lances-you wouldn't know them!"), and had met there
Lansing, whom he reported as intending to marry Coral "as soon as things
were settled". "You were dead right, weren't you, Susy," he snickered,
"that night in Venice last summer, when we all thought you were joking
about their engagement? Pity now you chucked our surprise visit to the
Hickses, and sent Streff up to drag us back just as we were breaking in!
You remember?"

He flung off the "Streff" airily, in the old way, but with a tentative
side-glance at his host; and Lord Altringham, leaning toward Susy, said
coldly: "Was Breckenridge speaking about me? I didn't catch what he
said. Does he speak indistinctly--or am I getting deaf, I wonder?"

After that it seemed comparatively easy, when Strefford had dropped her
at her hotel, to go upstairs and write. She dashed off the date and her
address, and then stopped; but suddenly she remembered Breckenridge's
snicker, and the words rushed from her. "Nick dear, it was July when you
left Venice, and I have had no word from you since the note in which you
said you had gone for a few days, and that I should hear soon again.

"You haven't written yet, and it is five months since you left me. That
means, I suppose, that you want to take back your freedom and give me
mine. Wouldn't it be kinder, in that case, to tell me so? It is worse
than anything to go on as we are now. I don't know how to put these
things but since you seem unwilling to write to me perhaps you would
prefer to send your answer to Mr. Frederic Spearman,