“First, how and where are you?  I called in Bruton Street at noon.  Hutton told me you had just gone to Crowborough House.  Kind—­no, wise little Duchess!  She honors herself in sheltering you.

“I could not write last night—­I was too uncertain, too anxious.  All I said might have jarred.  This morning came your note, about eleven.  It was angelic to think so kindly and thoughtfully of a friend—­angelic to write such a letter at such a time.  You announced your flight to Crowborough House, but did not say when, so I crept to Bruton Street, seeing Lady Henry in every lamp-post, got a few clandestine words with Hutton, and knew, at least, what had happened to you—­outwardly and visibly.

“Last night did you think me a poltroon to vanish as I did?  It was the impulse of a moment.  Mr. Montresor had pulled me into a corner of the room, away from the rest of the party, nominally to look at a picture, really that I might answer a confidential question he had just put to me with regard to a disputed incident in the Afridi campaign.  We were in the dark and partly behind a screen.  Then the door opened.  I confess the sight of Lady Henry paralyzed me.  A great, murderous, six-foot Afridi—­that would have been simple enough.  But a woman—­old and ill and furious—­with that Medusa’s face—­no!  My nerves suddenly failed me.  What right had I in her house, after all?  As she advanced into the room, I slipped out behind her.  General Fergus and M. du Bartas joined me in the hall.  We walked to Bond Street together.  They were divided between laughter and vexation.  I should have laughed—­if I could have forgotten you.

“But what could I have done for you, dear lady, if I had stayed out the storm?  I left you with three or four devoted adherents, who had, moreover, the advantage over me of either relationship or old acquaintance with Lady Henry.  Compared to them, I could have done nothing to shield you.  Was it not best to withdraw?  Yet all the way home I accused myself bitterly.  Nor did I feel, when I reached home, that one who had not grasped your hand under fire had any right to rest or sleep.  But anxiety for you, regrets for myself, took care of that; I got my deserts.

“After all, when the pricks and pains of this great wrench are over, shall we not all acknowledge that it is best the crash should have come?  You have suffered and borne too much.  Now we shall see you expand in a freer and happier life.  The Duchess has asked me to dinner to-morrow—­the note has just arrived—­so that I shall soon have the chance of hearing from you some of those details I so much want to know.  But before then you will write?

“As for me, I am full of alternate hopes and fears.  General Fergus, as we walked home, was rather silent and bearish—­I could not flatter myself that he had any friendly intentions towards me in his mind.  But Montresor was