yet find out what you have lost, if ever you
get out of that frightful gaol.

I was not such a silly fool as to pine and fret over our romance so
cruelly disturbed, though Jeanie was; it nearly broke her heart. No,
Richard, my nature is not of that make. I generally get even with people
who wrong me. I send you a photo, giving a fair idea of myself and my
HUSBAND, Mr. Mullockson. I accepted his offer soon after I saw your
adventures, and those of your friend Starlight, in every newspaper in
the colonies. I did not hold myself bound to live single for your
sake, so did what most women do, though they pretend to act from other
motives, I disposed of myself to the best advantage.

Mr. Mullockson has plenty of money, which is NEARLY everything in this
world, so that I am comfortable and well off, as far as that goes. If
I am not happy that is your fault--your fault, I say, because I am not
able to tear your false image and false self from my thoughts. Whatever
happens to me in the future you may consider yourself to blame for. I
should have been a happy and fairly good woman, as far as women go,
if you had been true, or rather if everything about you had not been
utterly false and despicable.

You think it fortunate after reading this, I daresay, that we are
separated for ever, BUT WE MAY MEET AGAIN, Richard Marston. THEN you may
have reason to curse the day, as I do most heartily, when you first set
eyes on KATE MULLOCKSON.

Not a pleasant letter, by no manner of means. I was glad I didn't get it
while I was eating my heart out under the stifling low roof of the cell
at Nomah, or when I was bearing my load at Berrima. A few pounds more
when the weight was all I could bear and live would have crushed the
heart out of me. I didn't want anything to cross me when I was looking
at mother and Aileen and thinking how, between us, we'd done everything
our worst enemy could have wished us to do. But here, when there was
plenty of time to think over old days and plan for the future, I could
bear the savage, spiteful sound of the whole letter and laugh at the
way she had got out of her troubles by taking up with a rough old fellow
whose cheque-book was the only decent thing about him. I wasn't sorry to
be rid of her either. Since I'd seen Gracey Storefield again every other
woman seemed disagreeable to me. I tore up the letter and threw it away,
hoping I had done for ever with a woman that