“Oh, very well, very well,” said Geoffrey, “I daresay that it will be all right, but if Effie gets any worse, you will please understand that room must be made.”

But Effie did not get worse.  She remained much about the same.  Geoffrey sat at home all day and employed himself in reading briefs; fortunately he had not to go to court.  About six o’clock he went down to the House, and having dined very simply and quietly, took his seat and listened to some dreary talk, which was being carried on for the benefit of the reporters, about the adoption of the Welsh language in the law courts of Wales.

Suddenly he became aware of a most extraordinary sense of oppression.  An indefinite dread took hold of him, his very soul was filled with terrible apprehensions and alarm.  Something dreadful seemed to knock at the portals of his sense, a horror which he could not grasp.  His mind was confused, but little by little it grew clearer, and he began to understand that a danger threatened Beatrice, that she was in great peril.  He was sure of it.  Her agonised dying cries reached him where he was, though in no form which he could understand; once more her thought beat on his thought—­once more and for the last time her spirit spoke to his.

Then suddenly a cold wind seemed to breathe upon his face and lift his hair, and everything was gone.  His mind was as it had been; again he heard the dreary orator and saw the members slipping away to dinner.  The conditions that disturbed him had passed, things were as they had been.  Nor was this strange!  For the link was broken.  Beatrice was dead.  She had passed into the domains of impenetrable silence.

Geoffrey sat up with a gasp, and as he did so a letter was placed in his hand.  It was addressed in Beatrice’s handwriting and bore the Chester postmark.  A chill fear seized him.  What did it contain?  He hurried with it into a private room and opened it.  It was dated from Bryngelly on the previous Sunday and had several inclosures.

“My dearest Geoffrey,” it began, “I have never before addressed you thus on paper, nor should I do so now, knowing to what risks such written words might put you, were it not that occasions may arise (as in this case) which seem to justify the risk.  For when all things are ended between a man and a woman who are to each other what we have been, then it is well that the one who goes should speak plainly before speech becomes impossible, if only that the one who is left should not misunderstand that which has been done.

“Geoffrey, it is probable—­it is almost certain—­that before your eyes read these words I shall be where in the body they can never see me more.  I write to you from the brink of the grave; when you read it, it will have closed over me.

“Geoffrey, I shall be dead.