It was a white, haggard wretch who crawled to a sofa and lay there staring at the written sheet in her hand like one who cannot understand. Yet it was plain English, and began, “Dear Andria,” as letters do. But her face was convulsed out of all beauty as she felt those few sentences burning into her brain; a dreadful trembling took her. “I’m going to cry; and I won’t cry!” she said savagely. She was on her feet and across the room to where a stand of spirits and soda waited for a visitor who would never come back to that house. But though she poured out neat whisky and drank it, it could not stop that horrible trembling. “I’m to go. He’s done with me!” she thought. “I--that thanked God at the sight of his letter;” her lips quivered in spite of her; “who’ve been faithful for five years.” She tried to read the letter slowly and sanely, but one sentence in it seemed to leap to her eyes. “Of course you know our marriage was nonsense. The clergyman was never even ordained. It would not hold good anywhere, even in Scotland.” “Then what am I?” thought Andria, and, being a brave woman, kept in the cry. She read on mechanically. “The fact is I’m ruined. I haven’t got a penny left, and my father is nearly as bad. You have plenty of sense, you will see for yourself that I must give in to him and marry money. He will be beside himself till we are on our feet again and there is an heir to the property. He would never hear of my marrying you, even if our madness had not passed by this time. You will understand this is not a pleasant letter for me to write, so I will close it. I send you what money I can spare, but you need not expect any more, for I haven’t got it. The sheriff will seize the furniture to-morrow, but my father’s agent will take over the house and pay the servants. Let me have your address, like a sensible girl. But I know you will see reason, especially as you are not tied to me in any way, and the end would have had to come some day.” There was no signature, and there were two pages preceding what was, after all, the gist of the matter. Andria Heathcote, who had never been Andria Erle except in her own mind, crept to her sofa and lay there, her face buried in the silk cushions Raimond Erle had chosen that very spring. But now it was November, and this was “a last year’s nest.” She bit at her arm fiercely that pain might keep away tears. None of Raimond Erle’s servants should see that the woman who had never been his wife had been crying in her shame and anger. She wondered how much they knew. All London probably knew more than she had done. She remembered how Raimond had had no friends but men, how she had gone among them by the nickname of “The Lovely Andria”; how some of them had openly thought her shameless--the remembrance made her writhe where she lay. A silver clock chimed, and she counted the sweet strokes.