She had boasted to Miss Hitchcock, "I will take myself out of his life, if need be." It was not an empty, woman's boast. She was strong enough to do what she willed. The time had come. She would not see him again. To break with words the ties between them would but dishonor them both. They must not discuss this thing. At the shore of the pool where they had put on their skates in the morning she paused, shaken with a new thought. The woman would come back on the morrow, and, without one word of denial from her, would tell him that terrible lie, confirming his old suspicions. She must see him,--she could not leave him with that foul memory,--and she returned to the temple in the hope that he was already there. The little building, however, was empty and desolate, and she sat down by the fire to wait. The story, the denial of it, no longer seemed important. She would write him what she had to say, and go away. She would tell him that she had not poisoned her husband like a sick dog, and he would believe the solemn last words. She took a sheet of paper from his table and wrote hesitatingly: "Dear Howard: I am leaving you----forever." Then she began again and again, but at last she came back to the first words and wrote on desperately: "I cannot make you understand it all. But one thing I must tell you, and you must believe it. That horrible woman, Mrs. Ducharme, was here this morning and told me that I had given opiates to my husband when he was ill in the cottage, and had killed him, _and that you knew it_. Somehow I remembered things that made me know you thought so, had always thought so. Perhaps you will still think it must have been so, her story is so terribly probable. "O Howard, you used to think that it would be right--but I couldn't. I might have in time, but I couldn't then. I did nothing to hasten his death. Believe this, if you love me the least. "That isn't the sole reason why I leave you. But it is all like that. I ruin the world for you. Love is not all,--at least for a man,--and somehow with me you cannot have the rest and love. We were wrong to rebel--I was wrong to take my happiness. I longed so! I have been so happy! "Alves." It seemed pitifully inadequate--a few wavering lines--to tell the tale of the volumes in her heart. But with a sigh she pushed back the chair and gathered her hat and cape. Once more she hesitated, and seeing that the fire in the stove was low, replenished it. Then she turned swiftly away, locked the door,--putting the key where they hid it, in the hollow of a pillar,--and walked rapidly in the direction of the lake.