“Curse him, curse him!” he muttered, as he dragged himself heavily and feverishly through the great gates and up the drive to the house which he had prepared for the woman he had entrapped. “Curse him! he’d separate us forever! He’d send me into a kind of transportation for life! I’d--I’d almost rather be hanged----” He shuddered. “No, no; anything’s better than that. But to lose Olivia; to lose her forever, forever! After all I’ve done, all I’ve spent, all I’ve risked!” He drew a long breath, and, unlocking the door of the library, dropped, exhausted by his walk and the excitement, on to a sofa. “If there was only some way out of it, some way of quieting him!” The words rang in his brain until he found himself repeating them in a dull, mechanical fashion. Suddenly his face crimsoned. “Why, he’ll be quiet enough presently!” he exclaimed, as a swift hope rushed into his craven heart. “If--if I can only wait, keep out of the way and wait, he’ll think the letter’s delivered, and I mean to keep my promise! It’s not for long. The trial will be here directly, and--and he’ll plead guilty----” He stopped, and sprang to his feet, white and trembling. An idea had struck him, one of those ideas which come to unscrupulous men in desperate straits. “I’ll do it! By God, I’ll do it!” he exclaimed. And, going to the writing-table, he wrote: DEAREST OLIVIA--I leave England to-night. I have been ill. I am still ill, with a terrible anxiety. I have seen F---- this afternoon, and he agrees with me that it will be better that I should leave England at once. I cannot tell you how my heart yearns for one word from you whom I have not seen since the day you became my wife. Think of me, my dearest, dearest Olivia. Your loving husband, BARTLEY BRADSTONE. P.S.--Inclosed is my address. But, in addition to the Hotel Meurice, which he wrote on the inclosed slip, were these lines: Faradeane does not know what has been driving me almost mad, what I have kept, but cannot keep from you longer, dearest. I was in the wood, and saw that poor woman meet her death by his hand. A word from me, one word, would be fatal to him! I cannot--cannot risk the chance of being called at the trial! Poor, poor fellow! I fear there is no hope for him! Burn this at once. It was a piece of diabolical cunning. He knew that Olivia would rather die than repeat what he had written, that it would account to her for his absence, and that it must--for he knew her, all unworthy of her as he was--estrange her heart from Faradeane.