"DEAR EARLE,--I have thought it all over--my promise to marry you, and your great wish that I should become your wife. I have thought it all over, and feel convinced that it will not do--we should not be happy. What I want, in order to be happy, you cannot give me. You will have to work hard for money, then you will have but little of it. We are better apart. I love you, and it will be a sorrow to leave you; but it is all for the best. I have gone away where it will be useless to follow me. I am going abroad as governess to some little children, and that will give me a chance to see the world I am longing to behold. "You will try to forget me, will you not, Earle? Is it any use suggesting to you that Mattie would be a far more sensible wife for you than I could ever make? Do not try to find me; I am going abroad under another name, and it would not please me to see you. I say good-bye to you with sorrow. As far as I can love any one, I love you. _Doris._" It was a cold, heartless, decided letter; but it was twenty times better, she thought, in its decisive cruelty, than if she had lingered over soft farewell phrases. There was a second letter, even more cruel and more curt. It was addressed "To Father, Mother, and Mattie," and ran thus: "I write to you all together as I have not time for three separate letters. You will be surprised in the morning not to see me. I have borne this kind of life as long as it was possible for me to do so, and now I am going away. I hope you will not make any effort to find me; I do not want to return to Brackenside--I do not want to marry Earle. I am going to teach some little children; and though it may not be quite the life I should like, it will be better than this." It was not a kind letter. She placed them both together and pinned them to the cushion of the toilet-table. "Mattie will see them the first thing in the morning," she said, "and ah, me, what a sensation they will make!" Then she looked at her little watch; it was but just ten; she had to go to the railway station at Quainton, and catch the mail train for Liverpool--it would pass there at midnight. She had to walk some distance through the fields and on the high-road. "I am sorry the moon shines so clearly, it will be light as day." The moon had looked down on many cruel deeds, perhaps on none more cruel than the flight of this young girl from the roof that had so long sheltered her, the home that had been hers. Her path lay over a broken heart, and as she set her fair feet on it no remorse or regret came to her as the crimson life-blood flowed.