Yes, from the beginning Theodora had been good and meek and docile. He remembered a thousand gentle, unselfish things she had done for him. Her patience, her kindness, her unfailing sympathy in all his ills, the consideration and respect with which she treated him. When--when could this thing have begun? In Paris? Only these short weeks ago--was love so sudden a passion as that? Then he turned to the letter again and once more read it through. Poor Theodora, poor little girl, he thought. His anger was gone now; nothing remained but an intolerable pain. And this lord--of her own class--her own class! How that thought hurt. What of him? He was handsome and young, and just the mate for Theodora. And she had said good-bye to him, and was going to do her best to make him--Josiah--happy. He gave a wild laugh. Oh, the mockery of it all, the mockery of it all! Well, if she could renounce happiness to keep her word, what could he do for her in return? She must never know of the mistake she had made in putting the letters into the wrong envelopes. That he could save her from. But the man? He would know--for he must have got the note intended for him--Josiah. What must be done about that? He thought and thought. And at last he drew a sheet of paper forward and wrote, in his neat, clerklike hand, just a few lines. And these were they: "MY LORD,--You will have received, I presume, a communication addressed to you and intended for me. The enclosed speaks for itself. I send it to you because it is my duty to do so. If I were a young man, though I am not of your class, I would kill you. But I am growing old, and my day is over. All I ask of you is never, _under any circumstances_, to let my wife know of her mistake about the letters. I do not wish to grieve her, or cause her more suffering than you have already brought upon her. "Believe me, "Yours faithfully, "JOSIAH BROWN." Then he got down the _Peerage_ and found the correct form of superscription he must place upon the envelope. He folded the two letters, his own and Theodora's, and, slipping them in, sealed the packet with his great seal which was graven with a deep J.B. And lest he should change his mind, he rang the bell for the waiter, and had it despatched to the post at once--to be sent by express. If possible it must reach Lord Bracondale at the same time as the other letter--Theodora's letter to himself in the wrong envelope. And then poor Josiah subsided into his chair again, and suffered and suffered. He was conscious of nothing else--just intense, overwhelming suffering. When his secretary, from his office in the City, came in about luncheon-time to transact some important business, he was horrified and distressed to see the change in his patron; for Josiah looked crumpled and shrivelled and old.