“This morning one of the servants handed me this letter, saying that Miss Jess, as they called her, had given this to them the night before at a late hour, requesting that it should be given to me to place in your hands when you should come to-day. I will retire into the library while you read it at your leisure.” The next moment John Dinsmore found himself standing alone in the luxurious drawing-room with Jess’ letter in his hand. “Why should his little bride write to him, instead of telling him anything she had to say in person?” he wondered, vaguely, and with the letter still held unopened in his hand he asked himself who Jess’ caller of the previous evening could have been. But quite as soon as the thought shaped itself in his mind, he came to the conclusion that it must have been Lawyer Abbot. No doubt the letter was to inform him that she had confessed her marriage to the old lawyer, and begged him to send her word that he was not so very angry, ere she ventured to come to him. He broke the seal and drew forth the letter. He had seen but one of Jess’ letters before, the one which had reached him when he was lying sick unto death from the outcome of the duel at Newport, consequently he could not recollect the chirography very clearly, save that it was in an unformed, straggling, girlish hand--the same as this appeared to be. As John Dinsmore’s eyes ran rapidly over the first few lines, the blood in his veins turned as cold as ice, and a blood-red mist seemed to sweep across his vision. The letter ran as follows: “MY HUSBAND: When you are reading what I am now writing, I shall be flying far away from you. I will tell you now by the medium of pen and paper what I was too much of a coward to tell you yesterday in person, and that is, that our marriage was a terrible mistake, and I am rueing it most bitterly, especially since last evening. “At that time some one came to call upon me. I might just as well tell you frankly who that some one was--the lover with whom I broke faith when I so thoughtlessly, on the spur of the moment, sealed a bitter fate for myself by marrying you. We had quarreled, and I, well, to be truthful, I married you just to make him suffer, but the words were scarcely uttered which bound me to you ere I rued it most bitterly, though I did not betray my grief to you by word or act. “Well, my old lover came, and I--I do not ask your pity for my weakness, for I realize fully that I do not deserve it. I knew that I could not live my life out if he went from me again, though I knew I was bound to you. Well, he felt the same toward me that I felt toward him, and we both agreed to brave the world for love--and each other. “I gathered my few articles together, and--as I have said, by the time you are reading these lines I will be far away with the man I love.