if Hannah has everything ready? And tell them to have candles in
all the sconces. It is to be a dinner party, you know!" She gave a
pleasant little laugh and turned towards the stairs, closing her
fingers over her letters in a delightful, secret sense of anticipation
and possession.

Her own room was filled with a cold grey light as she entered it--a
peculiar light drawn from the wind-swept sky and the pale, agitated
waters; and she noticed, as she crossed the threshold, that the wind
roared draughtily down the wide chimney, in a way that suggested autumn
and autumnal gales. But the circumstance made little impression; she
carried her own world in her heart--and here, in the letter Gore had
written.

In a second impulse of love, she laid the others aside, and opened
Gore's envelope. Drawing out the letter, she held it for a moment
against her face. On this paper his hand had rested when he wrote to
her! There was a sense of personal contact in the mere thought. Then,
at last, with a smile at her own sentiment, she opened it slowly and
smoothed out the pages.

The written lines--scarcely more than a dozen in number--danced for an
instant before her eyes; then focused themselves with terrible
distinctness.

There was no formal beginning to the letter; it was merely a statement
made in sharp, uneven characters, as though the sender had written
under great stress--great emotion or resolve.

"I find," it began, "that you have treated me with an unpardonable
want of honour and want of truth on a matter that concerned me very
deeply--the matter of Deerehurst; and it seems to me, under the
circumstances, only just and right that our engagement should come
to an end. A marriage built upon such a basis could only have one
termination. If this seems hard or abrupt, I can only say that the
knowledge of my mistake has come hardly to me. I shall go abroad
again as soon as I can make my plans. I am glad to think that, as
no one but your sister knew of our engagement, my action can cause
no public comment or unpleasantness for you.

"WALTER GORE."

Clodagh read the lines--read and re-read them. For the first time in
her life, her quick brain failed to respond to a first suggestion;
then, at last, as though the cloud that obscured her mind had been rent
asunder, conception of all that the letter conveyed sprang to her
understanding.

Walter had written this letter! Walter had given