That night, the very night after Ella had gone, I tested my slowly returning strength. Benham gave me my codein, and saw that I was well provided with all I might need for the night; the lemonade and glycerine lozenges, a second codein on the table by my side, the electric bell to my hand. This bell had been put up since the night nurse left; it rang into Benham’s bedroom. I waited for a quarter of an hour after she had gone, she had a habit of coming back to see if I had forgotten anything, or to show me how thick and abundant her hair was without the uniform cap. I should have felt like a criminal when I stole out of bed. But I did not, I felt like an invalid, and a feeble one at that. It was only a couple of steps from the bed to the chest of drawers and I accomplished it without mishap, then was back again in bed, only to remember the seals were still unbroken and the string firm. A pair of nail scissors were on the dressing-table. I was disinclined for the journey, but managed it all the same. I was then so exhausted I had to wait for a quarter of an hour before I was able to use them. Only then was my curiosity rewarded. A small number of letters, not more than fifteen or sixteen in all, a bound diary, a very cursory glance at which showed me the disingenuousness, and half a dozen pages of MS. notes or chapter headings with several trial titles, “Between the Nisi and the Absolute,” “Publisher and Sinner,” headed two separate pages. “The Story of an Unhappy Woman” the third. The notes were all in the first person, and I should have known them anywhere for Margaret Capel’s. Small as the whole _cache_ was, I did not think it possible I could get through it all that night. Neither did it seem possible to get out of bed again. The papers must remain where they were, or underneath my pillow. I should be strong enough, I hoped, by the morning to put up with or confront any wrath or argument Benham would advance. I had got up because I chose. That was the beginning and end of it. She must learn to put up with my ways, or I with a change of nurse. The letters were in an elastic band, without envelopes, labelled and numbered. Margaret’s were on paper of a light mauve, with lines, like foreign paper. Her handwriting, masculine and square, was not very readable. She rarely dotted an _i_ or crossed a _t_, used the Greek _e_ and many ellipses. Gabriel’s letters were as easy to read as print. It was a pity therefore that hers were so much longer than his. Still, once I began I was sorry to leave off, and should not have done so if I could have kept my eyes open or my attention from wandering. I am printing them just as they stand, those that I read that night, at least. Here they are:— No. 1. 211 Queen Anne’s Gate, S.W., January 29th, 1902. _Dear Sirs_:—