rted with all that belonged to
him. He waited for two days, and the reply came:--

"Referring to your letter of the 20th, I beg to state that I cannot do
what you wish. I am sorry that you have been in any way connected with
me, and I can only ask you now not to remind me of an intimacy and of a
relationship which I have cause to consider disgraceful. Your name is
mixed with the worst scandal that we have had in the town for years. The
girl would not speak a word against you, but her mother has said
enough."

The same relation furnished Desborough's address to Mrs. Blanchflower,
and a letter from the lady reached him: "I have no reproaches to make,
excepting that I am sorry you should think that we would pursue you."

Desborough wrote back: "I cannot do more than guess the accusation you
lay against me. I acted as I thought was best, and I give you my word
that I would die before hurting you or yours. I have a suspicion of the
real cause of your cruel letter, and the suspicion almost kills me. I
cannot come back to mix myself with the sordid scandal, and I can only
say that, whatever you may think of me, I deserve nothing but your
kindest thoughts."

His innocent precipitancy had involved the poor fellow in a web which he
had not nerve or insight enough to break. He saw that the woman he loved
had allowed an accusation to be laid against him, and he saw that she
wanted to shield her real lover, yet he would not baulk her by clearing
himself.

How he spent the next year of his life it would be useless to tell. At
first he drank, but the blank misery that follows the wretched
exaltation of drunkenness was too much for him, and he tried no more to
seek relief that way. It was then said that he tramped the country for
many months, and that he worked as a common blacksmith with a man who
travelled the roads in Cheshire. Then one of his letters bore the
post-mark of a small Norman town, and so from time to time rumours of
him reached the place where his name was mentioned with anger by women
and contempt by men.

Marion Blanchflower died, and the news of her death reached Desborough
by the merest chance while he was prosecuting one of his aimless
journeys among the hamlets of the Black Forest. But it was then too late
for him to go back. For ten years all news of him ceased. He never told
anyone what he had done during these years of his life. One after
another the people who had known him in the old town died off, and