‘For the last few days my mind has been full of hesitation and perplexity. I knew that if I married you I should be doing a wicked thing--I should stand before God’s altar with a lie upon my lips. I knew that if I broke my promise I should give you pain. I have argued the question with myself a hundred times, but could come to no fixed conclusion. I have been swayed to and fro like a reed in the wind. I wanted to do right, to act generously and justly to you who have been so full of trustfulness and generosity for me. This afternoon I saw your cousin. The meeting was neither his seeking nor mine, Kenrick. Be sure of that. An accident brought us face to face in the churchyard. Oh, then I knew, in a moment, that I must not marry you--that it would be better to break a hundred promises than to be your wife. Before he had spoken a word, while he stood looking at me in silence, I knew that I had never ceased to love him, that, let him scorn me as he might, I must go on loving him to the end. ‘So there was no alternative but this which I am taking, and this letter is my last farewell to you and all who have ever known me in England. ‘Your estate is free from the mortgage that encumbered it. In the beginning of my trouble of mind--when I found myself hesitating as to what course I ought to take--I resolved that the home you love should be set free. It is done. I beg you to take this as a gift from one who has learned to love you very truly as a friend and brother, but who could never have loved you with the love you would have claimed from a wife. ‘Yours affectionately and regretfully, ‘BEATRIX HAREFIELD. ‘_The Water House, Tuesday, Eleven o’clock._’ ‘This is Cyril’s doing,’ cried Kenrick, beside himself with rage. ‘They have plotted this between them. And she throws her money in my face. She thinks that I am so tame a hound as to take the wealth, for which the world would say I chose her, and let her go--the money without the wife. They have planned it between them. It is like Cyril. “Kenrick only cares about Culverhouse Castle,” he told her. “Set the estate free, and he will forgive you all the rest.” But I will not forgive either of them. I will follow both with my undying hatred. I will fling back her pitiful gift into her false face. She let me think I had won her love, while she meant to buy my forgiveness with her money.’ And then he flung himself face downward on the floor, and gave vent to his passion in angry tears. He had been happier lying on the blood-soaked ground under the walls of Pegu, with the brown Burmese soldiers trampling upon him, and a very acute consciousness of a bullet in his shoulder. Never had he been so wretched as at this moment, never so angry with fate or his fellow-men. He had to conquer his passion presently, and go calmly downstairs to tell Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer that there was to be no wedding. CHAPTER IX. JILTED.