"You'll guess all the rest. I was a fortnight with him in Paris. Then I went home. In a few weeks Edith guessed--and so did Judith Sabin, who was Edith's maid. Edith made me tell her everything. She and Ralph were nearly beside themselves. They were very strict in those days; Ralph was a great Evangelical, and used to speak at the May meetings. All his party looked up to him so--and consulted him. It was a fearful blow to him. But Edith thought of what to do--and she made him agree. We went abroad, she and I--with Judith. It was given out that Edith was delicate, and must have a year away. We stopped about in little mountain places--and Hester was born at Grenoble. And then for the last and only time, they let Neville come to see me--" Her voice sank. She could only go on in a whisper. "Three weeks later he was drowned on the Donegal coast. It was called an accident--but it wasn't. He had hoped and hoped to get his wife to divorce him--and make amends. And when Mrs. Flood's--his wife's--final letter came--she was a Catholic and nothing would induce her--he just took his boat out in a storm, and never came back--" The story lost itself in a long sobbing sigh that came from the depths of life. When she spoke again it was with more strength: "But he had written the night before to Richard--Richard Meynell. You know he was the Rector's uncle, though he was only seven years older? I had never seen Richard then. But I had often heard of him from Neville. Neville had taken a great fancy to him a year or two before, when Richard was still at college, and Neville was in the Guards. They used to talk of religion and philosophy. Neville was a great reader always--and they became great friends. So on his last night he wrote to Richard, telling him everything, and asking him to be kind to me--and Hester. And Richard--who had just been appointed to the living here--came out to the Riviera, and brought me the letter--and the little book that was in his pocket--when they found him. So you see ..." She spoke with fluttering colour and voice, as though to find words at all were a matter of infinite difficulty: