Beaupark, January 27, 1862.—­A letter from Stella, so startling and deplorable that I cannot remain away from her after reading it.  Her husband has deliberately deserted her.  He has gone to Rome, to serve his term of probation for the priesthood.  I travel to London by to-day’s train.

London, January 27.—­Short as it is, I looked at Stella’s letter again and again on the journey.  The tone of the closing sentences is still studiously cold.  After informing me that she is staying with her mother in London, she concludes her letter in these terms: 

“Be under no fear that the burden of my troubles will be laid on your shoulders.  Since the fatal day when we met at Ten Acres, you have shown forbearance and compassion toward me.  I don’t stop to inquire if you are sincere—­it rests with you to prove that.  But I have some questions to ask, which no person but you can answer.  For the rest, my friendless position will perhaps plead with you not to misunderstand me.  May I write again?”

Inveterate distrust in every sentence!  If any other woman had treated me in this way, I should have put her letter into the fire, and should not have stirred from my comfortable house.

January 29.—­A day missed out of my Diary.  The events of yesterday unnerved me for the time.

Arriving at Derwent’s Hotel on the evening of the 27th, I sent a line to Stella by messenger, to ask when she could receive me.

It is strange how the merest trifles seem to touch women!  Her note in reply contains the first expression of friendly feeling toward me which has escaped her since we parted at Brussels.  And this expression proceeds from her ungovernable surprise and gratitude at my taking the trouble to travel from Devonshire to London on her account!

For the rest, she proposed to call on me at the hotel the next morning.  She and her mother, it appeared, differed in opinion on the subject of Mr. Romayne’s behavior to her; and she wished to see me, in the first instance, unrestrained by Mrs. Eyrecourt’s interference.

There was little sleep for me that night.  I passed most of the time in smoking and walking up and down the room.  My one relief was afforded by Traveler—­he begged so hard to go to London with me, I could not resist him.  The dog always sleeps in my room.  His surprise at my extraordinary restlessness (ending in downright anxiety and alarm) was expressed in his eyes, and in his little whinings and cries, quite as intelligibly as if he had put his meaning into words.  Who first called a dog a dumb creature?  It must have been a man, I think—­and a thoroughly unlovable man, too, from a dog’s point of view.

Soon after ten, on the morning of the 28th, she entered my sitting-room.