"I'm going to be very frank with you, Rodney. I'll confess that I might not take such a decided step as this if I were not afraid Maxwell would marry Carolyn. The dear girl! She has already refused him once, so he tells me; but what does one refusal mean? Just nothing at all; though it might with Carolyn. But I don't want to risk that. They say the third time never fails, and I shall be Lady Maxwell sooner or later. Of course I shall be under a cloud for awhile, but I'm not afraid but that I can win my way. And Donald is perfectly infatuated with me. That goes without saying. This time no brewer's daughter will step between us. How I am going on! But I wanted you to understand the whole thing. I hope you won't delay any about the divorce. Of course I know you love Carolyn; of course I know you'll thank me in time for what I'm doing. Why didn't I wait and try the incompatibility plea? Because Maxwell might marry Carolyn, and then you'd be as disappointed as I. So I'm sure, on the whole, you'll agree with me. And for the sake of regaining your freedom you'll forgive me for the scandal I make by doing this way. I'm sorry this way seemed to be necessary, for I don't mind saying I shrink from it. Now, my dear Rodney, don't swear; you'll live to thank me." Thus the letter ended, without even a name signed to it. "But it doesn't need a name," Lawrence said. He stood there and read the pages three times, each reading seeming to shed a still brighter glare on the character of the writer. "That is the woman I married," he was thinking. "That woman!" He turned about and faced the house, the turrets of which he could see above the trees, blurred in the mist. He walked out from among the syringas, walking unevenly, like a man who is drunk. Above, in her chamber, Carolyn saw him. She was standing by the open window. She leaned forward and watched him, her tired eyes dilating as she watched. After a moment she left the room and ran quickly down the stairs and out of the house. Suddenly, as Lawrence went staggering on, a slender shape glided up to him and drew his hand quickly within an arm. "Rodney, lean on me," said Carolyn, in an unsteady voice, "Oh, how ill you are! Here, sit on this bench. I will go and get some one to help you." Lawrence sank down on the bench, but he caught at the girl's skirt, saying, breathlessly: "Stay! Stay! Read this." The letter fluttered out towards her. She stopped, standing perfectly still. She recognized her cousin's writing, and her eyes darted over the lines, not reading much, but taking in, as by a flash of lurid light, the whole sense of the base epistle. She did not speak, but stood gazing down at the letter after she had ceased to read it. She did not wish to look in her companion's face; she felt that she could not. Her own cheeks were hot with humiliated indignation.