LANSDOWN LODGE. 
          CHELTENHAM,
               Friday.

MY DEAREST FRANCES: 

I hope you got my two wires in time.  You needn’t come down, either of you.  And you needn’t worry about Mick.  Ferdie went round and talked to him like a fa—­I mean a big brother, and the revolver (bless his heart!) is at present reposing at the bottom of my glove-box.

All the same we both think you’d better take him away at Midsummer.  He says he can stick it till then, but not a day longer.  Poor Mick!  He has the most mysterious troubles.

I daresay it’s the Cheltenham climate as much as anything.  It doesn’t suit me or Bonny either, and it’s simply killing Ferdie by inches.  I suppose that’s why Bartie makes us stay here—­in the hope—­

Oh! my dear, I’m worried out of my life about him.  He’s never got over that fever he had in South Africa.  He’s looking ghastly.

And the awful thing is that I can’t do a thing for him.  Not a thing.  Unless—­

You haven’t forgotten the promise you made me two years ago, have you?

Dorothy seemed to think you could put Bonny and me up—­again!—­at Midsummer.  Can you?  And if poor Ferdie wants to come and see us, you won’t turn him off your door-mat, will you?

     Your lovingest
          “VERA.”

Frances said, “Poor Vera!  She even makes poor Mick an excuse for seeing Ferdie.”

X

Three more years passed and Frances had fulfilled her promise.  She had taken Veronica.

The situation had become definite.  Bartie had delivered his ultimatum.  Either Vera must give up Major Cameron, signing a written pledge in the presence of three witnesses, Frances, Anthony and Bartie’s solicitor, that she would neither see him nor write to him, nor hold any sort or manner of communication with him, direct or indirect, or he would obtain a judicial separation.  It was to be clearly understood by both of them that he would not, in any circumstances, divorce her.  Bartie knew that a divorce was what they wanted, what they had been playing for, and he was not going to make things easy for them; he was going to make things hard and bitter and shameful He had based his ultimatum on the calculation that Vera would not have the courage of her emotions; that even her passion would surrender when she found that it had no longer the protection of her husband’s house and name.  Besides Vera was expensive, and Cameron was a spendthrift on an insufficient income; he could not possibly afford her.  If Bartie’s suspicions were correct, the thing had been going on for the last twelve years, and if in twelve years’ time they had not forced his hand that was because they had counted the cost, and decided that, as Frances had put it, the “game was not worth the scandal.”

For when suspicion became unendurable he had consulted Anthony who assured him that Frances, who ought to know, was convinced that there was nothing in it except incompatibility, for which Bartie was superlatively responsible.