The only individual--alas, for this poor silly girl--this frail, weak vessel about to put to sea without a pilot, and with no chart or compass to guide it on its way--the only individual to whom the mystery of her setting sail on her adventurous cruise was to be no mystery, was the last person in the world to whom she should have confided the secrets of her life. To Arthur Vavasour--to the man whose “brotherly” kindness (he had been very cautious in his love-making of late, and Honor had in consequence grown proportionally off her guard)--to Arthur Vavasour only would she at once apply in this emergency for counsel and support. From him, she was well assured, she would never fail to meet with gentleness and respect. When she looked back upon his deferential manner--on his unceasing _kindness_, as Honor in her simplicity considered it--above all, when she compared that kindness and that deference with the aggressive treatment which from John’s unendurable parent had so greatly angered her, and also with the absence, for reasons which she knew not, of demonstrative affection from her husband--it is scarcely matter for surprise that Honor Beacham should have loved and cherished the man who gave to her--such was her woman’s faith--the offering which she prized the most; the offering, that is to say, of an affection on which, through evil report and through good report, and while life should last, she could confidently rely. Honor Beacham would have been no true woman if she had not, before making the first commonplace preparations for flight (which, of course, she being _pro tem._ a heroine, included counting out the money, and putting on the inevitable cloak and bonnet), written a few lines to announce her resolution to the person whom she deemed, in her insane delusion, to be the most deeply interested therein. There is something, to many of the softer sex, very reassuring in wielding that dangerous instrument of feeble woman, the one to which it is so fatally easy in moments of passionate excitement to have recourse--to wit, the pen; and Honor, with the following note written, stamped, and ready for posting in her pocket, felt far more prepared than she had done (previous to its production) for the difficulties and dangers with which her path was strewed: