"MY DEAR FATHER:--You will see from Georgie's telegram that we shall be leaving England to-morrow. I did not tell you this before because it would have meant so much explanation, and if we once began explaining things I don't think I should ever have gone at all. And I had to go. Believe me, I was convinced that in going I was doing the best thing for you. I thought you had been making sacrifices for my sake, and that you would be happier without me, though you would not say so. Whether I could have brought myself to leave you without the help of this conviction, and whether I have the conviction strongly still, I cannot say; it is hard to be perfectly honest, even with myself. But now that I have gone I simply can't come back again. Not yet. Perhaps never, till I have done the things I want to do. "Of course you will be angry--it is so unexpected. But only think--you would not be angry, would you, if I married? You would have considered that perfectly legitimate. Yet it would have meant my leaving you for good. And what marriage and settling down in it is to other women, seeing the world and wandering about in it is to me--it's the thing I care for most. We do not talk about these things, so this is the first you have heard of it. Think--if I had been very much in love with anyone I would have said nothing about it till I was all but engaged to him. It's the same thing. And it will make less difference to you than my marriage would have made." Here Frida's pen had come to a stop; with a sudden flight from the abstract to the concrete, she had begun a fresh argument on a fresh page. "I only mean to use a third of my income. The other two thousand will still go to keeping up the property. I have left everything so that my work could be taken up by anybody to-morrow." The Colonel's eyes had dogged Durant's down to the bottom of the sheet, when he made a nervous attempt to recapture the letter. It was too late; the swing of Frida's impassioned pleading had carried Durant over the page, and one terse sentence had printed itself instantaneously on his brain. He handed back the letter without a word. The Colonel drew Durant's arm in his and led him out through the window on to the gravel drive. Up and down, up and down, they walked for the space of one hour, while the Colonel poured out his soul. He went bareheaded, he lifted up his face to the heavens, touched to a deeper anguish by the beauty of the young day.