It was a frank and manly letter, written with all the delicacy and feeling that would naturally be expected from one so innately true and noble, and having sealed and addressed it, he dispatched it by a special messenger to the hotel where he had overheard Miss Rochester say she was stopping. He had arranged with his friend, Mr. Tillinghast, for a drive in the suburbs the next day, and as he did not like to disappoint him, he decided to keep this engagement and leave the following morning for Italy. He was still very sad; life seemed to have no special attraction for him—he had no ambition but to kill time and keep himself from thinking of the past. He had lost his interest in his profession, and cared nothing for the hospitals, as one would naturally expect. He rather shunned them, for even the sight of one brought back to his mind so much that was associated with Salome that he could not bear to enter. The next morning, between eight and nine o’clock, a letter addressed to “Albert Rochester, Esq.,” was handed to Mrs. Rochester—it had arrived too late the evening before to be given to her, and she seldom arose before eight. “What can be the meaning of this?” she exclaimed, as she read the superscription, and grew slightly pale at the now unaccustomed sight of her husband’s name upon a letter. “What is the matter?” inquired Miss Rochester, looking up from the morning paper. “A letter addressed to your father.” “Open it and read it—then you will know the meaning of it,” was the practical suggestion of the younger lady. “There is no postmark upon it, either,” continued Mrs. Rochester, as she broke the seal. “Why, how strange! it is from some one who does not know that Mr. Rochester is not living,” she added, with a puzzled air, as she began to read, and then she turned at once to the signature to ascertain who had written the letter. “Sadie, it is from Dr. Winthrop!” she exclaimed, a moment later. “Why, mamma!” and the girl flushed a vivid scarlet, for something seemed to tell her at once that the contents of the epistle related in some way to herself. “Read it aloud—of course it must be something about that contract,” she murmured, beginning to tremble with excitement. Mrs. Rochester obeyed, and both women immediately became absorbed in the romantic story which the young physician had written, to account for his long silence and his apparent neglect of them, together with the explanation of his sudden departure from Paris. “What a wonderful—almost improbable story!” Mrs. Rochester cried, when she had finished reading the letter; “and,” she added, with white lips and a frowning brow, “I suppose this settles your fate as well as mine regarding that fifty thousand.” “Yes—oh, mamma!” and Sadie Rochester suddenly slipped from her chair and lay white and senseless upon the floor at her mother’s feet. CHAPTER XVIII. ACCIDENT DISARRANGES DR. WINTHROP’S PLANS.