ing
which I have worn night and day since I was a child. I think that it
will fit your little finger and I hope you will always wear it in
memory of me. It was my mother's. And now it is late and I am tired,
and what is there more that a woman can say to the man she loves--and
whom she must leave for ever? Only one word--Good-bye. Ida."

When Harold got this letter it fairly broke him down. His hopes had
been revived when he thought that all was lost, and now again they
were utterly dashed and broken. He could see no way out of it, none at
all. He could not quarrel with Ida's decision, shocking as it was, for
the simple reason that he knew in his heart she was acting rightly and
even nobly. But, oh, the thought of it made him mad. It is probable
that to a man of imagination and deep feeling hell itself can invent
no more hideous torture than he must undergo in the position in which
Harold Quaritch found himself. To truly love some good woman or some
woman whom he thinks good--for it comes to the same thing--to love her
more than life, to hold her dearer even than his honour, to be, like
Harold, beloved in turn; and then to know that this woman, this one
thing for which he would count the world well lost, this light that
makes his days beautiful, has been taken from him by the bitterness of
Fate (not by Death, for that he could bear), taken from him, and given
--for money or money's worth--to some other man! It is, perhaps,
better that a man should die than that he should pass through such an
experience as that which threatened Harold Quaritch now: for though
the man die not, yet will it kill all that is best in him; and
whatever triumphs may await him, whatever women may be ready in the
future to pin their favours to his breast, life will never be for him
what it might have been, because his lost love took its glory with
her.

No wonder, then, that he despaired. No wonder, too, that there rose up
in his breast a great anger and indignation against the man who had
brought this last extremity of misery upon them. He was just, and
could make allowances for his rival's infatuation--which, indeed, Ida
being concerned, it was not difficult for him to understand. But he
was also, and above all things, a gentleman; and the spectacle of a
woman being inexorably driven into a distasteful marriage by money
pressure, put on by the man who wished to gain her, revolted him
beyond measure, and, though he was slow to wrath, moved him