Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/58

50 She turned and looked at me as if I were a stranger; she got up, and began to walk about the room; then she left the room, and I heard her go out of the house.

The letter had fallen on to the floor. I picked it up. The handwriting was very broken. The address gave a village some few miles away; the date was three days before.

“My Dear Lettice:

“You will want to know I am gone. I can hardly last a day or two—my kidneys are nearly gone.

“I came over one day. I didn’t see you, but I saw the girl by the window, and I had a few words with the lad. He never knew, and he felt nothing. I think the girl might have done. If you knew how awfully lonely I am, Lettice—how awfully I have been, you might feel sorry.

“I have saved what I could, to pay you back. I have had the worst of it Lettice, and I’m glad the end has come. I have had the worst of it.

“Good-bye—for ever—your husband, “”

I was numbed by this letter of my father’s. With almost agonised effort I strove to recall him, but I knew that my image of a tall, handsome, dark man with pale grey eyes was made up from my mother’s few words, and from a portrait I had once seen.

The marriage had been unhappy. My father was of frivolous, rather vulgar character, but plausible, having a good deal of charm. He was a liar, without notion of honesty, and he had deceived my mother