‘Fiddlesticks!’ exclaimed the Vicar. ‘There’s nothing consumptive about the Culverhouses. Cyril has the shoulders of an athlete, and the constitution of a Spartan, reared at the public tables on the leavings of the old men. But if he goes on working night and day in the tainted air of Bridford, he will get himself into such a feeble state that his next attack of fever will be fatal.’ ‘I am sure I had no idea he was so seriously ill last September, or I should have gone to Bridford to see him,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘but he tells me he had excellent nurses, two Frenchwomen, sisters of some charitable order. You needn’t be frightened, Clement. They were not nuns; and they made no attempt to convert him.’ ‘I would not despise them if they had made the attempt,’ answered the Vicar. ‘Every man has a right to offer his idea of salvation to his brother. The feeling is right, though the theology may be wrong.’ Kenrick was up soon after seven o’clock next morning, a wintry gray morning, without a ray of sunshine to gild his hopes. He was nearly dressed when he was startled by the sharp voice of Rebecca. ‘A letter, sir, brought by hand from the Water House. I’ve put it under the door.’ Kenrick seized the letter, with a vague foreboding of evil. It was in Beatrix Harefield’s hand. ‘Forgive me, Kenrick, forgive me, if you can, for what I am going to do. Oh, forgive me, my poor friend, pray forgive me for having played fast and loose with you. I am going away to some corner of the world, where neither you nor any one I have ever known can follow me or hear of me. I am fleeing from a marriage which could only result in misery to both you and me. You love me too well, you are too generous-minded to be satisfied with less than my true love; and that I cannot give you. I have prayed God to turn my heart towards you, to let me love you, but I cannot. There is always another whose image comes between me and my thoughts of you. I have tried to forget him--to thrust him out of my heart. I have tried to be angry with him for his doubt of me, but once having given him my heart I could not take it back again.