"That letter has been the curse of my life. I repented it as soon as it was sent--you may be sure of that: I could repeat it word for word even now. Oh, no doubt you made the most of it--jeered at it--laughed over it with _him_--but to me----" "It is the last thing I should ever have mentioned to my husband," said Lady Alice, with grave disdain. "He never knew that you wrote it--never saw it--never will see or know it from _me_." "Do you mean that you have kept it to yourself all these years?" "I mean that I put it into the fire as soon as I had read it. Why are you so concerned about it? Was it worse than the others that you must have written--before that?" "I never wrote to him before." They faced each other with mutual suspicion in their eyes. Lady Alice had forgotten her proud reserve: she wanted to know the truth at last. "I will acknowledge," she said, "that I believed that you had written other letters--of a somewhat similar kind--to Mr. Brooke. I was angry and disgusted: it was that which formed one of my reasons for leaving him years ago. But I have come to a better mind since then. I do not care what you wrote, what you said, or what you did: I believe that my husband is a good man and I love him. I have come back to him, and shall never leave him again. You can do me no harm now." Mrs. Romaine laughed mockingly. "Can I not?" she said. "Do you know that he came to me within an hour after his release? Do you know that he asked me to go away with him to Spain, where we could be safe and happy together? What do you say to that?" "I say this," cried Lady Alice, almost violently, "that I do not believe a word of it." She drew herself to her full height and turned to leave the room. Then she looked at Rosalind and spoke in a gentler tone. "I am sorry for you," she said. "But your suffering is partly your own fault. What right had you to think of winning my husband's heart away from me? You have not succeeded, although you have done your best to make us miserable. I have never spoken of you to him--never; but now, when I go home, I shall go straight to him and tell him all that you have said to me, and I shall know very well whether what you say is false or true." She left the room proudly and firmly, unheeding of the mocking laugh that Rosalind sent after her. She let herself out into the street and walked straight back to her home. Caspar was out: she could not go to him immediately, as she had said that she would do. She went to her room and lay down upon the bed, feeling strangely tired and weak. In spite of her haughty rebuttal of the charge against her husband, she was wounded and oppressed by it. And as the time went on, she felt more and more the difficulty of telling him her story, of asking him to clear himself. How could she question him without seeming to doubt?