"Perhaps I ought not to write to you. You gave me no permission to do so before you left town; but, all the same, I feel I must. It is only a week since you went away. How long a week can be! I can't make up my mind where to go. I have heaps of invitations, but don't care to accept any of them. Mrs. Woollffe and her niece are at Scarborough, they go to Trouville afterwards. I may join them. Despite eccentricities, they suit me better than English people. How is the 'Ladye'? Is she pursuing culture amidst the gloomy grandeur of Northumbrian shores, and does she bore or entertain you? Perhaps it is no use to ask questions, for you have never promised to write. Would you do so, I wonder, if I told you what a great, _great_ pleasure it would be to me; and I think you know something of the emptiness of my life. Do not fancy I am complaining, or that I wish to excite your pity. I only leave it to yourself and your own kind-heartedness, I won't even plead the old 'boy and girl' claim now. With you, Lauraine, I have always felt more as if speaking to myself in a way--you have so much comprehension, so much sympathy. You know there are few people to whom we ever open up our _real_ selves and most of us go through life really strangers to those who think they know us best. But with you and me this will never be. We have stood heart to heart in our childish days, and known to the full each other's faults, weaknesses, capabilities. How often you used to lecture me on my selfishness, my headstrong will, my impulsiveness. Ah me! how often that sweet little child face of yours looks back at me from the mists of the past. I have only to close my eyes and I see you, oh, so plainly, in your simple cotton frock, and with your great eyes upraised to mine. I can even feel the touch of your little hand on my arm; and your voice--will ever a woman's voice on the face of God's earth thrill my soul and calm my wild heart as yours has done, and does? Oh! the pity of it all; the pity of it....