“I hope I may never by chance see Cecily; I have a horrible conviction that I should kill her.  Why shouldn’t I tell you all the truth?  My feeling towards her is a strange and vile compound of passions, but I believe that hatred predominates.  If she were so unfortunate as to come again into my power, I should make it my one object to crush her to my own level; and in the end I should kill her.  Perhaps that is the destined close of our drama.  Even to you, as I confessed, I felt murderous impulses.  I haven’t yet been quite successful in analyzing this state of mind.  The vulgar would say that, having chosen the devil’s part, I am receiving share of the devil’s spirit.  But to give a thing a bad name doesn’t help one to understand it.

“Don’t let this terrify you.  I am going away again, to be out of reach of temptation.  I know, I know with certainty, that the end in some form or other draws near.  I have thought so much of Fate, that I seem to have got an unusual perception of its course, as it affects me.  Keep this letter as a piece of curious human experience.  It may be the last you receive from me.”

Something less than a month after this, Edward Spence, examining his correspondence at the breakfast-table, found a French newspaper, addressed to him in a hand he recognized.

“This is from Seaborne,” he said to Eleanor, as he stripped off the wrapper.

He discovered a marked paragraph.  It reported a tragic occurrence in a street near the Luxembourg.  The husband of an actress at one of the minor theatres in Paris had encountered his wife’s lover, and shot him dead.  The victim was “un jeune Anglais, nomme Elgare.”

The sender of this newspaper had also written; his letter contained fuller details.  He had seen the corpse, and identified it.  Could he do anything?  Or would some friend of Mrs. Elgar come over?

Eleanor carried the intelligence first of all to Roehampton.  In her consultation with the Mallards, it was decided that she, rather than Miriam, should visit Cecily.  She left them with this purpose.

It was possible that Cecily had already heard.  On arriving at the house, Eleanor was at once admitted, and went up to the sitting-room on the second floor; she entered with a tremulous anxiety, and the first glance told her that her news had not been anticipated.  Cecily was seated with several books open before her; the smile of friendly welcome slowly lighting her grave countenance, showed that her mind detached itself with difficulty from an absorbing subject.

“Welcome always,” she said, “and most so when least expected.”

The room was less bare than when she first occupied it.  Pictures and books were numerous; the sunlight fell upon an open piano; an easel, on which was a charcoal drawing from a cast, stood in the middle of the floor.  But the plain furniture remained, and no mere luxuries had been introduced.  It was a work-room, not a boudoir.