collect my reason, to commune
calmly and deliberately with myself; I have to write to her--to invent,
to lie,--I, who believed I could never, never utter, even to an enemy,
what was false! And I must not soften the blow to her. I must not utter
a word of love,--love, it is incest! I must endeavour brutally to crush
out the very affection I created! She must hate me!--oh, _teach_ her
to hate me! Blacken my name, traduce my motives,--let her believe them
levity or perfidy, what you will. So will she forget me the sooner; so
will she the easier bear the sorrow which the father brings upon the
child. And _she_ has not sinned! O Heaven, the sin was mine! Let my
punishment be a sacrifice that Thou wilt accept for her!"

Lord Vargrave attempted again to console; but this time the words died
upon his lips. His arts failed him. Maltravers turned impatiently away
and pointed to the door.

"I will see you again," said he, "before I quit Paris; leave your
address below."

Vargrave was not, perhaps, unwilling to terminate a scene so painful:
he muttered a few incoherent words, and abruptly withdrew. He heard
the door locked behind him as he departed. Ernest Maltravers was
alone!--what a solitude!

CHAPTER IV.

PITY me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.--_Hamlet_.

LETTER FROM ERNEST MALTRAVERS TO EVELYN CAMERON.

EVELYN!

All that you have read of faithlessness and perfidy will seem tame to
you when compared with that conduct which you are doomed to meet from
me. We must part, and for ever. We have seen each other for the last
time. It is bootless even to ask the cause. Believe that I am fickle,
false, heartless,--that a whim has changed me, if you will. My resolve
is unalterable. We meet no more even as friends. I do not ask you either
to forgive or to remember me. Look on me as one wholly unworthy even
of resentment! Do not think that I write this in madness or in fever or
excitement. Judge me not by my seeming illness this morning. I invent no
excuse, no extenuation, for my broken faith and perjured vows. Calmly,
coldly, and deliberately I write; and thus writing, I renounce your
love.

This language is wanton cruelty,--it is fiendish insult,--is it not,
Evelyn? Am I not a villain? Are you not grateful for your escape? Do you
not look on the past with a shudder at the precipice on which you stood?

I have done with this subject,--I turn to another. We are parted,
Evelyn, and foreve