The letter was long and candid, yet by no means without tenderness. "I have written to Asher," it said, "to direct him to send in the morning for the chairs I found in the hall. They are too expensive for us, and I have told him that I will not buy them, I need not say that in writing to him I have avoided every word that could be annoying to you. If you would only trust me, and consult me a little about such things,--trifles as they be,--life just now would be easier than it is." Then he passed to a very frank statement of their financial position, and of his own steady resolve not to allow himself to drift into hopeless debt. The words were clear and sharp, but not more so than the course of the preceding six weeks made absolutely necessary. And their very sharpness led him to much repentant kindness at the end. No doubt she was disappointed both in him and in his circumstances; and, certainly, differences had developed between them that they had never foreseen at the time of their engagement. But to "make a good thing" of living together was never easy. He asked her not to despair, not to judge him hardly. He would do his best--let her only give him back her confidence and affection. He closed the letter, and then paced restlessly about the little room for a time. It seemed to him that he was caught in a vice--that neither happiness, nor decent daily comfort, nor even the satisfactions of ambition, were ever to be his. Next day he was off to Euston before Letty was properly awake. She found his letter waiting for her when she descended, and spent the day in a pale excitement. Yet by the end of it she had pretty well made up her mind. She would have to give in on the money question. George's figures and her natural shrewdness convinced her that the ultimate results of fighting him in this matter could only be more uncomfortable for herself than for him. But as to her freedom in choosing her own friends, or as to her jealousy of Lady Maxwell, she would never give in. If George had ceased to court his wife, then he could have nothing to say if she looked for the amusement and admiration that were her due from other people. There was no harm in that. Everybody else did it; and she was not going to be pretty and young for nothing. Whereupon she sat down and wrote a line to Lord Cathedine to tell him that she and "Tully" would be at the Opera on the following night, and to beg him to make sure that she got her "cards for Clarence House." Moreover, she meant to make use of him to procure her a card for a very smart ball, the last of the season, which was coming off in a fortnight. That could be arranged, no doubt, at the Opera. * * * * *