"MY DEAR ROBERT:--A little while ago, you told me all that I possessed, that even my wedding ring, belonged to you. To-day I restore you all that you have given me, and with my raiment and ornaments, the dearest ornament of all--my wedding ring. You have broken every pledge it promised. You have treated me, and permitted others to treat me, with a sustained, deliberate neglect and cruelty that is almost incredible. To-day I make you free from all obligations to me, and my child. Do not try to find us. You cannot. We shall disappear as completely as a stone thrown into mid-ocean. But you know well, that I may be fully trusted to do all my duty to David. Oh, Robert, Robert, I cannot bear to reproach you! I love you, though I am leaving you forever. My father and mother go with me, and God and they are a multitude. I shall want for nothing but your love, and that was taken from me long ago. My love, my love! Farewell forever. "THEODORA." Then he unfolded the bit of tissue paper which the letter contained, and out of it fell the wedding ring. He laid it in the hollow of his hand and looked at it. And as he looked, the storm in his heart gathered and gathered, until all its waves and billows went over him. "_Gone! Gone forever!_" he said in an awful whisper--a whisper that came from a depth of his nature never plumbed before; an abyss that only despair and death know of. He rose and walked about, he sat down, he re-read the letter, he tried to think, and could not. He threw off his coat and vest, his collar and neckerchief; they lay at his feet, and he kicked them out of his way. "I am choking--dying!" he murmured. "Dora! Dora! Dora! Where are--you?" The unfortunate man was torn with the most contrary feelings. He loved the adorable woman who had cast him off; and he hated her. Remorse for his own neglect and cruelty alternated with anger at his wife for the pain she was giving him. And she had robbed him of his child also, _his child_! Oh, he would have the child back, if he moved heaven and earth to compass it. There was no order, no method in his grief, one dreadful accusation followed another like actual blows, from a hand he could neither stay, nor entreat, nor reason with.