The meaning of it is that I have left the world and
entered a sisterhood which works among the poor in London, and I have
come to bid you farewell, a last farewell."

He stared at her in amazement. He did not find it easy to connect the
idea of this beautiful, human, loving creature with the cold sanctuary
of a sisterhood. He did not know that natures like this, whose very
intensity is often the cause of their destruction, are most capable of
these strange developments. The man or woman who can really love and
endure--and they are rare--can also, when their passion has utterly
broken them, turn to climb the stony paths that lead to love's
antipodes.

"Edward," she went on, speaking very slowly, "you know in what
relation we have stood to each other, and what that relationship means
to woman. You know this--I have loved you with all my heart, and all
my strength, and all my soul----" Here she trembled and broke down.

"You know, too," she continued presently, "what has been the end of
all this, the shameful end. I am not come to blame you. I do not blame
you, for the fault was mine, and if I have anything to forgive I
forgive it freely. Whatever memories may still live in my heart I
swear I put away all bitterness, and that my most earnest wish is that
you may be happy, as happiness is to you. The sin was mine; that is it
would have been mine were we free agents, which perhaps we are not. I
should have loved my husband, or rather the man whom I thought my
husband, for with all his faults he was of a different clay to you,
Edward."

He looked up, but said nothing.

"I know," she went on, pointing to the picture over the mantelpiece,
"that your mind is still set upon her, and I am nothing, and less than
nothing, to you. When I am gone you will scarcely give me a thought. I
cannot tell you if you will succeed in your end, and I think the
methods you are adopting wicked and shameful. But whether you succeed
or not, your fate also will be what my fate is--to love a person who
is not only indifferent to you but who positively dislikes you, and
reserves all her secret heart for another man, and I know no greater
penalty than is to be found in that daily misery."

"You are very consoling," he said sulkily.

"I only tell you the truth," she answered. "What sort of life do you
suppose mine has been when I am so utterly broken, so entirely robbed
of hope, that I have determined to leave the world and hide myself and
my sha