Raymond kept his word and before the end of the following day Sabina received a letter. She had alternated, since Daniel's sudden death, between fits of depression and elation. She was cast down, because no communication of any kind had reached her since Raymond hurried off on the day of the accident; and she was elated, because the future must certainly be much more splendid for Raymond now. She explained his silence easily enough, for much work devolved upon him; but when he did not come to see her on the day of the funeral, she was seriously perturbed and grew excited, unstrung and full of forebodings. Her mother heard from those who had seen him that Raymond appeared to be abstracted and 'kept himself to himself' entirely; which led to anxiety on her part also. The letter defined the position. "MY DEAREST SABINA,--A thing like the death of my brother, with all that it means to me, cannot happen without having very far-reaching results. You may have noticed for some time before this occurred that I felt uneasy about the future--not only for your sake, but my own--and I had long felt that we were doing a very doubtful thing to marry. However, as circumstances were such then, that I should have been in the gutter if I did not marry, I was going to do so. There seemed to be no choice, though I felt all the time that I was not doing the fair thing to you, or myself. "Now the case is altered and I can do the fair thing to you and myself, because circumstances make it possible. I have got tons of money now, and it is not too much to say that I want you to share it. But not on the old understanding. I hate and loathe matrimony and everything to do with it, and now that it is possible to avoid the institution, I intend to do so. "What you have got to do is to put a lot of stupid, conventional ideas out of your mind, and not worry about other people, and the drivel they talk, or the idiotic things they say. We weren't conventional last year, so why the dickens should we be this? I'm awfully keen about you, Sabina, and awfully keen about the child too; but let us be sane and be lovers and not a wretched married couple. "If you will come and be my housekeeper, I shall welcome you with rejoicings, and we can go house-hunting again and find something worthier of us and take bigger views. "Don't let this bowl you over and make you savage. It is simply a question of what will keep us the best friends, and wear best. I am perfectly certain that in the long run we shall be happier so, than chained together by a lot of cursed laws, that will put our future relations on a footing that denies freedom of action to us both. Let's be pioneers and set a good example to people and help to knock on the head the imbecile marriage laws.