"I send you these enclosures," she wrote at last, "they explain themselves. I trust to your honour to keep them back for two and a half days from your receipt of this letter. You have borne so much already; you will bear this for me. This alters everything, of course. You won’t need me now. Had I been able to atone in the smallest degree for your shame and betrayal, you know that I would have given myself gladly, without a moment’s hesitation. But your career is opening out again before you. You are not mine really, you see; you never were mine in the biggest sense. Men like you are too big to be bound down by a woman’s love; you will reach your goal the quicker because you haven’t me beside you. Everything is settled; my husband’s escape and my own. It will tell in his favour if I too seem involved in the inevitable scandal. We shall have to stand or fall together in this. Such help as I can give him by identifying myself with his interests must be his—is, in fact, his due, considering that in my heart I violated every law of God’s that bound us. "Don’t try to find me; I have to take my courage in both hands as it is. There are some things beyond expression. "Good-bye. That’s a cold word to say. I doubt if it ever has been said with a more profound sense of farewell. We shall never meet again in the future; we have met too often in the past. Yet how sweet it has been, some of it—worth every pang, every wound. How sweet it might have been, you and I know.... But we cannot stand against God’s will. "I could write on for ever—what’s the use? We know the truth. We belong to each other, now and always. The two lives which stand between us now are shadows, which once in eternity will disappear." She folded the two letters, addressed them, and went down-stairs to post them herself. There was a letter with a foreign postmark in the box; she recognized the handwriting as Hare’s, although so weak and tremulous. She held it for a moment in her hand, wondering what it contained; Hare was an infrequent correspondent. She decided to post her letters first, and read his message afterwards. There was so much still to be done that night. She had still to arrange her own plans of escape. To Marseilles she must inevitably go—but afterwards? That lay on the knees of the gods. When once she had seen Brand, she would take the next train out to the unknown. *CHAPTER III* "They kill me, they cut my flesh ... what then? ... In matter of death carry thyself scornfully ... either the gods can do nothing for us, or they can allay the distemper of thy mind. If they can do nothing, why dost thou pray?"—MARCUS AURELIUS.