“MY DEAR OWEN,—­I am afraid you will be disappointed, and I am disappointed too, for I should like to see you; but I think it would be better, and Monsignor, who was here to-day, thinks it would be better, that we should not see each other... for the present.  I have recovered a good deal, but am still far from well; my nerves are shattered.  You know I have been through a great deal; and though I am sure you would have refrained from all allusions to unpleasant topics, still your presence would remind me too much of what I don’t want to think about.  It is impossible for me to explain better.  This letter will seem unkind to you, who do not like unkind letters; but you will try to understand, and to see things from my point of view, and not to rave when I tell you that I am going to a convent—­not to be a nun; that, of course, is out of the question; but for rest, and only among those good women can I find the necessary rest.

“My first thought was to go to Dulwich to my father, but—­well, here is a piece of news that will interest you—­he has been appointed capelmeister to the Papal choir, the ambition of his life is fulfilled, and he started at once for Rome.  It is possible that three or four months hence, when he is settled, he will write to ask me to go out to join him there, and Monsignor would like me to do this, for, of course, my duty is by my father, who is no longer as young as he used to be.  I don’t like to leave him, but the matter has been carefully considered; he has been here with Monsignor, and the conclusion arrived at is, that it is better for me to go to the convent for a long rest.  Afterwards ... one never knows; there is no use making plans.  “EVELYN.”

“No use making plans; I should think not, indeed,” Owen cried.  “Never will she come out of that convent, Merat, never!  They have got her, they have got her!  You remember the first day we met, you and I, in the Rue Balzac, and you have been with her ever since; you were with us in Brussels when she sang ‘Elizabeth,’ and in Germany—­do you remember the night she sang ‘Isolde’?  So it has come to this, so it has come to this; and in spite of all we could do.  Do you remember Italy, Merat?  Good God!  Good God!” And he fell into a chair and did not speak again for some time.  “It would have been better if Ulick Dean had persuaded her to go away with him.  It was I who told him to go to see her and kept him in my house because I knew that this damned priest would get her in the end.”

“But, Sir Owen, for mademoiselle to be a nun is out of the question... if you knew what convents were.”

“Oh, Merat, don’t talk to me, don’t talk to me; they have got her!”

Then a sudden idea seized him.