No word passed between master and pupil as to the bad news the morning had brought, except that as Ralph, somewhat sooner than usual, bade the Manager goodnight, Macneillie with his most kindly look said to him:-- “Your Romeo is the best thing you have done yet. The saying goes, you know, that no man has the power to act Romeo till he looks too old for the part; you have done something towards falsifying that axiom, and have cheered a dark day for me.” “I owe everything to you, Governor,” said Ralph gripping his hand; and as he turned away he felt that he would have given up all and been content to play walking gentleman for the rest of his days if only Macneillie could be spared this grievous trial that had come upon him. He prayed for a reform of the law as he had never prayed in his life. Left alone, Macneillie paced silently up and down the room, deep in thought. At length in the small hours of the night, he took pen and paper and wrote the following letter:-- “My dear Christine: “It is impossible after our talk last summer in Scotland, to let such a time as this pass by in silence. You well know that I love you, nor will I pretend ignorance of your love for me. Let us be honest and face facts;--truth makes even what we are called on to bear more endurable. It is because I love and honour you that I write to bid you farewell. Let us at least be law-abiding citizens, even though the law be a one-sided, unjust law. “I believe from my heart, that Christ, though disallowing divorce, with its natural sequence another marriage, for all the trivial reasons which the Jews were in the habit of putting forward, distinctly permitted them where a marriage had been broken by the faithlessness of a guilty partner. And assuredly He never set up one standard of morality for men and another for women; His words must apply equally to both. “Doubtless some day the gross injustice of the existing English law will be removed, and as in Scotland there will be one and the same law for men and women in this matter. For that day I wait and hope. For many reasons I do not ask now to see you. Is it not better that we should not meet? I am convinced that it is safer and wiser that we should--both for our own sakes and for the sake of the profession--keep apart. Many may think this mere old-fashioned prejudice, but I believe I should serve you better at a distance than by dangling about you and so giving a handle to those scandal-mongers who love nothing so dearly as to make free with the name of some well-known actress. “I dare not write more, save just to beg and pray that if there should ever be a time when you are in any danger or difficulty, and others--better fitted to serve because more indifferent--are not at hand, you will then turn to me for help. “God bless you. Good bye. “Yours ever, “Hugh Macneillie.”