"Rich Peter!" he corrected, with a wan smile. "There are so many who have n't as much as that." He went back to his room. The next thing to do was to write some sort of explanation to Covington. His ears burned as he thought of the other letter he had sent. How it must have bored into the man! How it must have hurt! He had been forced to read the confession of love of another man for his wife. The wonder was that he had not taken the next train back and knocked down the writer. It must be that he understood the hopelessness of such a passion. Perhaps he had smiled! Only that was not like Covington. Rather, he had gripped his jaws and stood it. But if it had hurt and he hankered for revenge, he was to have it now. He, Noyes, had bared his soul to the husband and confessed a love that now he must stand up and recant. That was punishment enough for any man. He must do that, too, without violating any of Marjory's confidences--without helping in any way to disentangle the pitiful snarl that it was within his power to disentangle. She whose happiness might partly have recompensed him for what he had to do, he must still leave unhappy. As far as he himself was concerned, however, he was entitled to tell the truth. He could not recant his love. That would be false. But he had no right to it--that was what he must make Covington understand. _Dear Covington_ [he began]: I am writing this with my eyes open. The miracle I spoke of came to pass. Also a great many other things have come to pass. You'll realize how hard it is to write about them after that other letter, when I tell you I have learned the truth: that Marjory is Mrs. Covington. She told me herself, when our relations reached a crisis where she had to tell. I feel, naturally, as if I owed you some sort of apology; and yet, when I come to frame it, I find myself baffled. Of course I'm leaving for home as soon as possible--probably to-morrow. Of course if I had known the truth I should have left long ago, and that letter would never have had any occasion for being written. I'm assuming, Covington, that you will believe that without any question. You knew what I did not know and did not tell me even after you knew how I felt. I suppose you felt so confident of her that you trusted her absolutely to handle an affair of this sort herself. I want to say right here, you were justified. Whatever in that other letter I may have said to lead you to believe she had come to care for me in the slightest was a result solely of my own self-delusion and her innate gentleness. I have discovered that my sister, meaning no harm, went to her and told her that the restoration of my sight depended upon her interest in me. It was manifestly unfair of my sister to put it that way, but the little woman was thinking only of me. I'm sorry it was done. Evidently it was the basis upon which she made the feeble promise I spoke of, and which I exaggerated into something more.