and is so difficult to meet or combat. I left the hotel
where the dinner had been held quite early, and drove back to the
house, longing and impatient to be with her again, hold her in my
arms, and tell her all I had resolved and been thinking about, and
kiss the bright colour back into her face again.

I let myself in with my latch-key and ran up the stairs into the
drawing-room.

It was brightly lighted, but empty. I was just going to seek her
upstairs when a note set up before the clock on the mantelpiece caught
my eye.

I crossed the room, took it up, tore it open, and ran my eyes
hurriedly down it, line after line.

"_Dearest,_

"Our relations have entered upon a new phase lately. I suppose it
cannot be helped, it is merely the turning on of the wheel of
time. We cannot stay the wheel, still less turn it back. All we
can do is to adjust ourselves to the new position.

"You have wished for your freedom. It is yours. I have never
wanted to take it away, but I feel I cannot go on dedicating my
life and every thought I have to you as I have done, if you wish
to share with others all that has been mine and all that I value
most in this or any world. I have tried, but it is beyond me. You
cannot think what I have suffered in these last weeks. I have
reasoned with myself, asked myself what did it matter what you did
when you were away from me, why should one rival now matter more
than those the past has held for me? I have argued, reasoned,
fought with myself, but it is useless. These unconquerable
instincts of jealousy have been placed in us and are as strong as
those other instincts of desire that excite them.

"The life of the last few weeks is killing me. I am losing my
health, losing my power to work. It is the concentration of all my
thoughts upon you that is maddening, impossible now that you no
longer belong to me. Even your presence, once the sun of my
existence, is painful to me now; and when you come straight from
another woman to kiss me, it is agony. I cannot bear it.

"You thought I did not know all the kisses and caresses you have
given Veronica. Dear Trevor, a woman always knows--perhaps a man
does, too. Certainly I knew. One does not have to see or hear;
there is a sense, not yet discovered, that is above all the
others, that tells us these things. When you came from her to me
yo