d, hardly bearing his
abuse.

"'This is my "bit" to do in the war days,' I reminded myself, and
thought maybe my kind of fighting was almost as hard to do as the
fighting in the trenches. Besides, I never lost sight of what you
answered when I first told you how hard it was, living up to
obligations I'd taken on myself. You said, 'We're all sparks of the one
Great Fire, some brighter than others. We can't hate each other for
long without finding out that it's as bad as hating ourselves.' Truly,
I quite brought myself to stop hating him. I only pitied, and tried to
help, as much as he would let me. But I see now that it was all in
vain. I can't do him any good by staying, and--well, I just simply
can't bear it! He is too ill to be moved. This dear old house will have
to be his home while he drags on his death in life--which may mean
years. So I, not he, must go.

"Lest you should blame me too much, I will tell you what happened,
though I wasn't sure I would do so when I began to write.

"His valet is a trained nurse, a repellent person, though competent,
with dull eyes and a face which looks as if it had petrified under his
skin, because his soul--if any--belongs to the Stone Age. The
creature's name happens to be Stone, too; and if he has any feeling it
is love of money. His master has been bribing him, it seems, to spy
upon me. While I was away from the house, at my mother's funeral, Stone
was searching the drawers of my desk in the octagon study I've told you
about, where I like to sit because it was my dearest one's favorite
room.

"I had never thought of hiding your letters. There was nothing in them
which needed to be hidden. Besides, it never occurred to me that cruel
suspicions and disgusting ideas of baseness were wriggling round me,
like little snakes that peep out from between the rough stones in a
ruined wall. There they all were, bound together in a packet, the kind,
brave letters that have been my salvation! Stone took them to his
master, who sent for me when I came home after the funeral.

"As soon as I saw him, I knew that something unusual had happened. He
flung his 'discovery' of the letters into my face. He told me that he
had burnt all but a few which he would keep to 'use' against me, and
tried to frighten me into promising never to write to 'this John
Sanbourne' again. Of course I gave no promise. Instead, I told him that
what he had done and said freed me from him forever. Then I went out of