Every line that Alan read increased his bewilderment. Was it possible that dissipation, and trouble, and intrigue had told at last on the busy brain, so that it had utterly given way? Such things had been; there was certainly something strange and unnatural in the character of the writing, sometimes hurried till the words ran into each other, sometimes laboured and constrained as if penned by a hand that hesitated and faltered. He knew that Nina was rash beyond rashness, and would indulge her sudden caprices at any cost, without reckoning the sin or even the shame, but he could not believe in such a wild _velleité_ as this. "She must be mad." Wyverne spoke those words aloud; they were answered by a sigh, or rather a quick catching of the breath, close to his shoulder; he started to his feet, and stood face to face with Helen Vavasour, who had entered unobserved while he sat in his deep reverie. Helen was still in her walking-dress; a fall of lace slightly shaded her brow and cheeks, but it could not dissemble the bright feverish flush that made the white pallor of all the lower part of the face more painfully apparent; the pupils of her great eyes were contracted, and they glittered with the strange _serpentine_ light which is one of the evidences of poison by belladonna; but neither cheeks nor eyes bore trace of a tear. She had schooled herself to speak quite deliberately and calmly; the effect was apparent, not only in the careful accentuation of each syllable, but in her voice--neither harsh nor hollow, yet utterly changed. "Mad, Alan? Yes, we have all been mad. It is time that this should come to an end. You think, so, too, I am sure." Wyverne had known, from the first moment that he saw the letter, how it would fare with him; but the bitter irritation which had hardened his heart on a former occasion was not there now; he could not even be angry with those who had brought him to this pass; all other feelings were swallowed up in an intense, half-unselfish sorrow. "Dear child, it _is_ more than time that you should be set free from me and my miserable fortunes. We will drift away, alone, henceforth, as we ought always to have done. It was simply a sin, ever to have risked dragging you down with the wreck; it must founder soon. Ah, remember, I said so once, and you--never mind that--I'll make what amends I can; but I have done fearful harm already. Three months more of this, would wear you out in mind and body; even now they will tell in your life like years. We most part now. Darling, try to forget, and to forgive, too--for you have much to forgive." He stopped for a moment, but went on quickly, answering the wild, haggard question of her startled eyes; she had understood those last words wrongly.