that
surrounded us and the air we breathed.

I explained to her about the letters, and then, kneeling on the rug in
front of her, I emptied the dust of the flowers into the fire. There
was, though I hate to confess it, a vindictive pleasure in watching it
melt into the flames and at the moment I believe I could have burned the
apparition as thankfully. The more I saw of the Other One, the more I
found myself accepting Hopkins' judgment of her. Yes, her behaviour,
living and dead, proved that she was not "a good sort."

My eyes were still on the flames when a sound from Mrs.
Vanderbridge--half a sigh, half a sob--made me turn quickly and look up
at her.

"But this isn't his handwriting," she said in a puzzled tone. "They are
love letters, and they are to her--but they are not from him." For a
moment or two she was silent, and I heard the pages rustle in her hands
as she turned them impatiently. "They are not from him," she repeated
presently, with an exultant ring in her voice. "They are written after
her marriage, but they are from another man." She was as sternly tragic
as an avenging fate. "She wasn't faithful to him while she lived. She
wasn't faithful to him even while he was hers--"

With a spring I had risen from my knees and was bending over her.

"Then you can save him from her. You can win him back? You have only to
show him the letters, and he will believe."

"Yes, I have only to show him the letters." She was looking beyond me
into the dusky shadows of the firelight, as if she saw the Other One
standing there. "I have only to show him the letters," I knew now that
she was not speaking to me, "and he will believe."

"Her power over him will be broken," I cried out. "He will think of her
differently. Oh, don't you see? Can't you see? It is the only way to
make him think of her differently. It is the only way to break for ever
the thought that draws her back to him."

"Yes, I see, it is the only way," she said slowly; and the words were
still on her lips when the door opened and Mr. Vanderbridge entered.

"I came for a cup of tea," he began, and added with playful tenderness,
"What is the only way?"

It was the crucial moment, I realized--it was the hour of destiny for
these two--and while he sank wearily into a chair, I looked imploringly
at his wife and then at the letters lying scattered loosely about her.
If I had had my will I should have flung them at him with a violence
which would have startl