it—­kiss it there too—­it is our last cold embrace.  Before the end I shall put on the ring you gave me—­on my hand, I mean.  I have always worn it upon my breast.  When I touched you as you passed through the gateway I thought that I should have broken down and called to you—­but I found strength not to do so.  My heart is breaking and my eyes are blind with tears; I can write no more; I have no more to say.  Now once again good-bye. Ave atque vale—­oh, my love!—­B.”

The second letter was a dummy.  That is to say it purported to be such an epistle as any young lady might have written to a gentleman friend.  It began, “Dear Mr. Bingham,” and ended, “Yours sincerely, Beatrice Granger,” was filled with chit-chat, and expressed hopes that he would be able to come down to Bryngelly again later in the summer, when they would go canoeing.

It was obvious, thought Beatrice, that if Geoffrey was accused by Owen Davies or anybody else of being concerned with her mysterious end, the production of such a frank epistle written two days previously would demonstrate the absurdity of the idea.  Poor Beatrice, she was full of precautions!

Let him who may imagine the effect produced upon Geoffrey by this heartrending and astounding epistle!  Could Beatrice have seen his face when he had finished reading it she would never have committed suicide.  In a minute it became like that of an old man.  As the whole truth sank into his mind, such an agony of horror, of remorse, of unavailing woe and hopelessness swept across his soul, that for a moment he thought his vital forces must give way beneath it, and that he should die, as indeed in this dark hour he would have rejoiced to do.  Oh, how pitiful it was—­how pitiful and how awful!  To think of this love, so passionately pure, wasted on his own unworthiness.  To think of this divine woman going down to lonely death for him—­a strong man; to picture her crouching behind that gateway pillar and touching him as he passed, while he, the thrice accursed fool, knew nothing till too late; to know that he had gone to Euston and not to Paddington; to remember the matchless strength and beauty of the love which he had lost, and that face which he should never see again!  Surely his heart would break.  No man could bear it!

And of those cowards who hounded her to death, if indeed she was already dead!  Oh, he would kill Owen Davies—­yes, and Elizabeth too, were it not that she was a woman; and as for Honoria he had done with her.  Scandal, what did he care for scandal?  If he had his will there should be a scandal indeed, for he would beat this Owen Davies, this reptile, who did not hesitate to use a woman’s terrors to prosper the fulfilling of his lust—­yes, and then drag him to the Continent and kill him there.  Only vengeance was left to him!