“Dear, darling Andy:  If all the world were as good, and kind, and true as you, I should not be writing this letter, with my arrangements made for flight.  Richard will tell you why I go.  It would take me too long.  I have been very unhappy here, though none of my wretchedness has been caused by you.  Dear Andy, if I could tell you how much I love you, and how sorry I am to fall in your opinion, as I surely shall when you hear what has happened.  Do not hate me, Andy, and sometimes when you pray, remember Ethie, won’t you?  She needs your prayers so much, for she cannot pray herself.  I do not want to be wholly bad—­do not want to be lost forever; and I have faith that God will hear you.  The beautiful consistency of your everyday life and simple trust, have been powerful sermons to me, convincing me that there is a reality in the religion you profess.  Go on, Andy, as you have begun, and may the God whom I am not worthy to name, bless you, and keep you, and give you every possible good.  In fancy I wind my arms around your neck, and kiss your dear, kind face, as, with scalding tears, I write you good-by.

“Farewell, Andy, darling Andy, farewell.”

Ethelyn had not wept before, but now, as Andy rose up before her with the thought that she should see him no more, her tears poured like rain, and blotted the sheet on which she had written to him.  It hurt her more, if possible, to lose his respect than that of any other person, and for a half-instant she wavered in the decision.  But it was too late now.  The piano was sold and delivered, and if she tarried she had no special excuse to offer for its sale.  She must carry out her plan, even though it proved the greatest mistake of her life.  So the letters were directed and put, with Daisy’s ring, in the little drawer of the bureau, where Richard would be sure to find them when he came back.  Perhaps, as Ethie put them there, she thought how they might be the means of a reconciliation; that Richard, after reading her note, would move heaven and earth to find her, and having done so, would thenceforth be her willing slave; possibly, too, remembering the harsh things he had so recently said to her, she exulted a little as she saw him coming back to his deserted home, and finding his domestic altar laid low in the dust.  But if this was so she gave no sign, and though her face was deathly pale, her nerves were steady and her voice calm, as she gave orders concerning her baggage, and then when it was time, turned the key upon her room, and left it with the clerk, to whom she said: 

“I shall not be back until my husband returns.”

She was going to Olney, of course—­going to see his folks, the landlady said, when she heard Mrs. Markham had gone; and so no wonder was created among the female boarders, except that Ethelyn had not said good-by to a single one of them.  She was not equal to that.  Her great desire was to escape unseen, and with a veil drawn closely over her face, she sat in the darkest corner of the ladies’ room, waiting impatiently for the arrival of the train, and glancing furtively at the people around her.  Groups of men were walking up and down upon the platform without, and among them Frank Van Buren.  On his way to the cars he had called again at the Stafford House, and learned that Mrs. Markham was out.