When they were gone, his friend saying he would be back in an hour's time, the young man turned the letter over more than once ere he broke the seal--it bore no address upon it, perhaps for safety's sake--and then, at last, he opened it and commenced its perusal. And as he did so and saw the once familiar handwriting, he sighed profoundly more than once. Yet soon he was engrossed in the contents. They ran as follows: "I hear you are in London and that at last is it possible for me to do what I have long desired--though hitherto no opportunity has arisen--namely, to explain that which in your eyes may seem to be my treachery to you. "Mr. Elphinston, when you and I last parted, I was your affianced wife; I write to you now as the wife of another man to ask you for your pardon. If I set down all as it came to pass it may be that, at least, you will cease to hate my memory--the memory of my name. Nightly I pray that such may some day be the case. Thereby at last I may know ease, though never again happiness in this world. "When you quitted Paris a year ago you went, as you said you were going, to Rome on a message to the Pope connected with the Cause. Alas! you and Father Sholto had not been sped a week ere very different tidings reached me. My father--God forgive him!--first poisoned my ears with rumours--which he said were spread not only over all Paris but also at St. Germains, Vincennes, and Marly--that it was on no political matter that you had departed. It was known--even I knew so much, I had jested with you about it, had even been sore on the subject--that Madeleine Baufremont, of the Queen's Chamber, admired you. Now, so said my unhappy father, with well-acted misery, it was whispered that she and you had gone away together. Moreover, he said there was no doubt that you and she were married. He even named the church at which the marriage had taken place at Moret, beyond Fontainebleau." "So, so," muttered Bertie Elphinston, as he read. "I see. I begin to see. 'Tis as I thought, though I did not know this. Well, a better lie than one might have hoped." "Next," the letter continued, "there came to me the man who is now my husband--then, as you know, the Honourable Simeon Larpent, his father being still alive. Needless to tell you, Mr. Elphinston, of how this man had ever sought my love; first, because of our poverty, in a manner alike disgraceful to both, and next, when that design failed, in a more honourable fashion. Yet, of no avail when you---- But enough. You also know well how every plea of his was rejected by me. "He, too, told the same tale. He protested to me that on the morning you left St. Germains Madeleine Baufremont set out on the same southern road, that your carriages met and joined at Étampes, and that thence you travelled together to Moret." "The devil can indeed speak the truth," muttered Bertie, as he read thus far.