I am here in London, according to my determination already announced to you. I shall live a little while at this hotel, and afterwards where my profession may make it necessary. Believe me, my dear father, that this life alone is best for me, and best for you at this moment. I could live no longer in a house where, rightly or wrongly, I have always felt a stranger--and my love for Gavin forbids me to hear those things which I must hear every day in my old home. Now that I am mistress of my own actions, you will be able to find an answer in my independence to those who are not to be answered in any other way. Should Count Odin follow me to London, he will learn that I am neither without friends nor resources; and I shall not hesitate to call upon both for my protection. It is my intention to establish myself here until such time as news of Gavin's welfare may come to me or that I may, myself, go to seek it. That he has been the victim of foul play I am sure; and I will not rest until the truth is known. Dear father, if you must suffer because of me, forgive and forget, and be sure always of my love for you and my desire for your happiness. We are outcasts of fortune both, and while the world is enjoying our position, we know that it is false, that we are but intruders by accident, and that our past is rising up every day to laugh our ambitions to scorn. Happier far when we were wanderers and poor, with days of love and hope to live and no debt to pay to a great and insupportable heritage. Dear father, you will next hear of me as Etta Romney, the actress--but never forget that Evelyn will return to you if you have need of her; and that her love for you is imperishable. Willingly would she take your burdens upon her own shoulders, and give you those years of rest and peace which are your heart's desire. But, for the time being, she must live alone for the sake of the man who has befriended her and to whom she has given her love. Dearest Father, Your loving EVELYN always. From which it is clear that the month of November found Gavin Ord still in Roumania and Count Odin again in Derbyshire. The latter had returned from Bukharest early in the month of September, and, dismissing his friends, the gypsies, had settled down at Melbourne Hall as one who, at no distant date, would be its master. That the Earl acquiesced in this assurance convinced Evelyn finally that she did not possess the whole of her father's story. Either he was a coward (and this she would never believe), or some mystery of her own past or his abetted the Count's pretensions. No other explanation of the matter was possible; nor could she foresee a day which would rid her of the presence of a man who ever spoke to her of the heritage her mother's country had bequeathed to her and its penalties.