She answered sadly that all he could do would be to let her feel that he was there--just for a day or two, till she had readjusted herself to the idea of going on in the old way; and on this note of renunciation they parted. But Durham, however pledged to the passive part, could not long sustain it without rebellion. To "hang round" the shut door of his hopes seemed, after two long days, more than even his passion required of him; and on the third he despatched a note of goodbye to his friend. He was going off for a few weeks, he explained--his mother and sisters wished to be taken to the Italian lakes: but he would return to Paris, and say his real farewell to her, before sailing for America in July. He had not intended his note to act as an ultimatum: he had no wish to surprise Madame de Malrive into unconsidered surrender. When, almost immediately, his own messenger returned with a reply from her, he even felt a pang of disappointment, a momentary fear lest she should have stooped a little from the high place where his passion had preferred to leave her; but her first words turned his fear into rejoicing. "Let me see you before you go: something extraordinary has happened," she wrote. What had happened, as he heard from her a few hours later--finding her in a tremor of frightened gladness, with her door boldly closed to all the world but himself--was nothing less extraordinary than a visit from Madame de Treymes, who had come, officially delegated by the family, to announce that Monsieur de Malrive had decided not to oppose his wife's suit for divorce. Durham, at the news, was almost afraid to show himself too amazed; but his small signs of alarm and wonder were swallowed up in the flush of Madame de Malrive's incredulous joy. "It's the long habit, you know, of not believing them--of looking for the truth always in what they _don't_ say. It took me hours and hours to convince myself that there's no trick under it, that there can't be any," she explained. "Then you _are_ convinced now?" escaped from Durham; but the shadow of his question lingered no more than the flit of a wing across her face. "I am convinced because the facts are there to reassure me. Christiane tells me that Monsieur de Malrive has consulted his lawyers, and that they have advised him to free me. Maitre Enguerrand has been instructed to see my lawyer whenever I wish it. They quite understand that I never should have taken the step in face of any opposition on their part--I am so thankful to you for making that perfectly clear to them!--and I suppose this is the return their pride makes to mine. For they _can_ be proud collectively--" She broke off and added, with happy hands outstretched: "And I owe it all to you--Christiane said it was your talk with her that had convinced them."