“MY DEAREST VIVI,—You will wonder at these few lines, but I feel I owe you some little explanation, though whether you will care about it I know not. Our lives as regards one another have not been over happy; at least I can speak for myself in saying so. I do not blame you, Vivi, for the want of affection you have always shown me, or for your goings on with other men. The fault lies in your bringing up, and the false position in which your sex is placed by man’s unnatural laws. I learnt to recognise this long ago, and to acknowledge the teaching of Hector D’Estrange as true and just. That noble genius, now unveiled to a wondering world as Gloria de Lara, is paying the penalty of her attempt to naturalise woman’s position in this world, as a lead up to many and much-needed social reforms. I feel strongly that in this moment of trial she should receive the support of all men and women, high and low, rich and poor, who feel with her, and I have determined to place my services at her disposal. This, Vivi, will naturally take me away from you for a time, perhaps for ever. Who knows? Only God. You will not miss me, for I have never been anything to you. I do not blame you, dearest, for I ought never to have married you. Still I loved you, and love you still; that is my only plea, and I ask your forgiveness. You will perhaps accord it when you realise that I am giving my life to the upraising of your sex, and to attaining its freedom, thereby accomplishing the first great step in the direction of social reform, on which the gaze of Gloria de Lara is fixed. How this struggle will end I know not. It will be the greatest revolution this world has ever known,—far-reaching in its results, and, let us hope and pray, bringing about a final, fair, and lasting settlement of that all-momentous question, which has given to the world its noblest woman in Gloria de Lara. Good-bye, Vivi. “Your ever-devoted husband, “LAUNCELOT TREVOR.” She lays the letter down on her lap, and sits staring at it. Her thoughts fly back across the years of her wedded life, years spent in vain amusements and false excitements. She cannot recall a single kindly or unselfish act on her part towards the man who has loved her so devotedly and tenderly, nor can she lay hold of one single act of usefulness upon which she can look back with either pleasure or satisfaction. Very acutely she feels this now; and yet has it been entirely her own fault? “What else could I do?” she murmurs to herself. “I was never brought up to think of anything else. Mother bade me marry well and quickly. That’s exactly what I did do. What other opening was given me? None. If I had been a man, and properly educated, I might have done something; but as it was, what else could I do?”