“Although I am not a model man myself, I have a prejudice in favor of good women that makes it impossible I should live with you. You forced me into this marriage, so I consider myself entirely justifiable in deserting you. “Your boasted power over me is at an end, as I am informed of a crime _you_ have committed that quite equals, if not transcends, mine, since mine was unsuccessful, and yours did not fail. “Briefly, then, while I was absent last August, a friend of mine was murdered in my country house by a shot fired through the window, as he was about to embrace a young girl. His name was Harold Severn, and the mystery of his fate has never been solved, as his body was afterward placed in the river by persons, no doubt, who wished it out of the house. “But there is one person who knows how Harold Severn was killed. The murderess was seen at the window as she dropped the pistol, and--recognized as Mrs. Dunn! The witness of your crime has mercifully spared you, but felt impelled to inform me, in order to save me from marrying you. Unfortunately the letter came too late, but in time at least to give me this signal triumph over you. “I confess I am filled with wonder over your reasons for killing Harold Severn. Can it be he was secretly your lover, and you were jealous of his fair companion? And who on earth was the girl, anyway? I mean to trace her out. “Fair Ione, we are quits. You hold a dangerous secret of mine and I hold a yet more fatal one of yours. You understand that we will have to mutually respect these secrets. “Adieu, madam, and bon voyage. “PERCY SEABRIGHT.” She sat there on the cold, wind-swept deck, reading that letter as if turned to stone, her face dead-white, her peculiar eyes a-glitter with greenish fire. The blue and sunny sky, the blue and rippling sea all seemed to blend into a broad, dark canvas, on which was painted in great black letters that all the world was reading: “Deserted!--deserted in the first hour of your marriage!” And she had loved this man--loved him as wildly as was possible to one of her cruel and selfish nature. In that love lay the deepest sting of her shame. Her first husband she had never loved. She had married him for his money and played him false. A divorce had followed, and she had left her far-off home to escape the odium that settled on her name. In Boston she called herself a widow, and here she after a while became acquainted with Percy Seabright. The man was a miserable flirt and a born actor. He could assume any rôle.