When they came home it was nearly dusk, and it was their habit to sit up for a while without candles, talking, till the evening had in truth set in and the unmistakable and enforced idleness of remaining without candles was apparent.  During this time, Lily, demanding patience of herself all the while, was thinking what she would do, or rather what she would say, about the letter.  That nothing would be done or said in the presence of Grace Crawley was a matter of course, nor would she do or say anything to get rid of Grace.  She would be very patient; but she would, at last, ask her mother about the letter.

And then, as luck would have it, Grace Crawley got up and left the room.  Lily still waited for a few minutes, and, in order that her patience might be thoroughly exercised, she said a word or two about her sister Bell; how the eldest child’s whooping-cough was nearly well, and how the baby was doing wonderful things with its first tooth.  But as Mrs Dale had already seen Bell’s letter, all this was not intensely interesting.  At last Lily came to the point and asked her question.  ‘Mamma, from whom was that other letter which you got this morning?’

Our story will perhaps be best told by communicating the letter to the reader before it was discussed with Lily.  The letter was as follows:-

‘General committee office,—­January, 186-’

I should have said that Mrs Dale had not opened the letter till she had found herself in the solitude of her own bedroom; and that then, before doing so, she had examined the handwriting with anxious eyes.  When she first received it she thought she knew the writer, but was not sure.  Then she had glanced at the impression over the fastening, and had known at once from whom the letter had come.  It was from Mr Crosbie, the man who had brought so much trouble into her house, who had jilted her daughter; the only man in the world whom she had a right to regard as a positive enemy to herself.  She had no doubt about it, as she tore the envelope open; and yet, when the address given made her quite sure, a new feeling of shivering came upon her, and she asked herself whether it might not be better that she should send his letter back to him without reading it.  But she read it.

‘Madam,’ the letter began—­ ’You will be very much surprised to hear from me, and I am quite aware that I am not entitled to the ordinary courtesy of an acknowledgement from you, should you be pleased to throw my letter on some side as unworthy of your notice.  But I cannot refrain from addressing you, and must leave it to you to reply or not, as you may think fit.

’I will only refer to that episode of my life with which you are acquainted, for the sake of acknowledging my great fault and of assuring you that I did not go unpunished.  It would be useless for me now to attempt to explain to you the circumstances which led me into that difficulty which ended in so great a blunder; but I will ask you to believe that my folly was greater than my sin.