"So she writes to you?" "Yes. When they first married, Mr. Gaunt hadn't got a motor, so ours came in handy. I took her about a bit. She's a perfect angel. Hard on him, poor chap! having to let her go like this, isn't it? You can see how he is fretting!" "Is he? He looks to me an ill-conditioned brute," said Gerald shortly. "Oh, he's quite a good sort when you know him," replied Joey kindly. "But as a husband for her----" "Well, why didn't you chip in?" "One can't always follow the dictates of the heart, Mrs. Ferris. I couldn't afford to marry for love." "Well, of course, Gaunt is much too old for her, as far as years go; but," observed Joey, with one of her flashes of intuition, "he is absurdly young in the sense of not having used up his emotions. He was jilted in his youth, so they say, and ever since has imagined that he hated women--thought himself heart-broken, and shut himself up alone until one fine day he saw her. He has all the heaped-up love of a lifetime to pour out at her feet." "I don't doubt his sentiments. The question is, will she have any use for them?" retorted Gerald, with bitterness. * * * * * It was late when Gaunt reached Omberleigh that evening. It seemed to him as though he had been away a week, for the reason that this was the day when he usually heard from Virgie, and if she wrote in her usual punctual way, there would be a letter lying in the bag upon the hall table when he came in. There was. He opened the bag with hands that shook so that he was afraid Hemming might notice; and when he drew out the letter, "he pounced on it, like a dog on a bone," as the servant afterwards related, "and was off with it into his study before you could count two." The scrupulously business-like letters were little enough upon which to feed the fire of a consuming passion. The point was that in every letter she recognised, by implication, his hold over her. Before taking any step she consulted him, she awaited his permission. In a way it was torture; she never let him forget that he had bought and paid for her. On the other hand, since she maintained this attitude, surely she would come back to him! She never used any form of address at the beginning of her letters. "Osbert Gaunt, Esq.," was written above, and then followed the body of the communication. She signed herself merely "Virginia," as though the second name were too horrible, or too distasteful to write. He had never seen her full signature since she became his wife. He hungered to see her written acknowledgment of her wifehood, and with this object he had set a trap for her. He wrote a cheque which would need her endorsement, and sent it to her. This expedient failed, for she returned the cheque, saying she was in no need of more money; she had enough, and more than enough.