"Why do you not ask me to explain all the--circumstances of my life since I saw you last? Why can't you understand that a girl situated as I am has temptations that at times seem to her irresistible? Need I mortify myself by telling you that I am _driven_--driven till I feel as if I would do anything to get rest from eternal lectures about what a rich marriage has got to do for me--and for others? Yes, you are right in saying that a man like you never before asked me to marry him. Because I feel that--because--because--Oh! you are cruel not to speak--to help me! How can I put into words that I am willing to give up all--" It was impossible, facing the rigid coldness of his face, to go on. She sat in wretched silence till they reached shore, and he gave her his chilly hand to help her upon the float. Then the touch of her fingers sent a tremor of relenting into his veins. "Oh, if I could! If I could! But he too--that other one--believed. Tell me; he does not still believe in you?" "I hate him," she said, doggedly. She shivered a little, as the quickened breeze of evening struck her thinly-clad form. Grove, clasping her hand, gazed into her eyes with a desperate resolve to read her heart. "Let me go--it is no use," she said, turning away from him. And, with a sigh deep as Fate, he loosened his hold of her--forever. On Frenchman's Bay Chapter I From Maxwell Pollock, Esq., No. -- Fifth Avenue, New York, to Stephen Cranbrooke, Esq., ---- Club, New York. "May 30, 189-. "My dear Cranbrooke: "You will wonder why I follow up our conversation of last evening with a letter; why, instead of speaking, I should write what is left to be said between us two. "But after a sleepless night, of which my little wife suspects nothing, I am impelled to confide in you--my oldest friend, _her_ friend, although you and she have not yet grown to the comprehension of each other I hoped for when she married me three years ago--a secret that has begun to weigh heavy upon my soul. "I do not need to remind you that, since our college days, you have known me subject to fits of moodiness and depression upon which you have often rallied me. How many times you have said that a fellow to whom Fate had given health, strength, opportunity, and fortune--and recently the treasure of a lovely and loving wife--has no business to admit the word 'depression' into his vocabulary! "This is true. I acknowledge it, as I have a thousand times before. I am a fool, a coward, to shrink from what is before me. But I was still more of a fool and a coward when I married her. For her sake, the prospect of my death before this summer wanes impels me to own to you my certainty that my end is close at hand.