ter lunch Theodora escaped to
her room. She must write her letter to Josiah for the afternoon's post.
She had discovered the train left at eleven o'clock. It did not take her
long, this little note to her husband, and then she sat and stared into
space for a while.

The terrible reaction had begun. There was no more excitement, only the
flatness, the blank of the days to look forward to, and that unspeakable
sense of loss and void. And oh, she had let Hector go without one word
of her passionate love! She had been too unnerved to answer him when he
had said his last good-bye to her in the wood.

She seized the pen again which had dropped from her hand. She would
write to him. She would tell him her thoughts--in a final farewell. It
might comfort him, and herself, too.

So she wrote and wrote on, straight out from her heart, then she found
she had only just time to take the letters to the hall.

She closed Hector's with a sigh, and picking up Josiah's, already
fastened, she ran with them quickly down the stairs.

There was an immense pile of correspondence--the accumulation of
Whitsuntide.

The box that usually received it was quite full, and several letters lay
about on the table.

She placed her two with the rest, and turned to leave the hall. She
could not face all the company on the lawn just yet, and went back to
her room, meeting Morella Winmarleigh bringing some of her own to be
posted as she passed through the saloon.

When Miss Winmarleigh reached the table curiosity seized her. She
guessed what had been Theodora's errand. She would like to see her
writing and to whom the letters were addressed.

No one was about anywhere. All the correspondence was already there, as
in five minutes or less the post would go.

She had no time to lose, so she picked up the last two envelopes which
lay on the top of the pile and read the first:

To
Josiah Brown, Esq.,
Claridge's Hotel,
Brook Street,
London, W.

and the other:

The Lord Bracondale,
Bracondale Chase,
Bracondale.

"The husband and--the lover!" she said to herself. And a sudden
temptation came over her, swift and strong and not to be resisted.

Here would be revenge--revenge she had always longed for! while her
sullen rage had been gathering all these last days. She heard the groom
of the chambers approaching to collect the letters; she must decide at
once. So she slipped Theodora's two missives into her blouse a