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"Very well," she said, and as soon as he had left the room she

tore open the letter with trembling fingers. A roll of unfolded

notes done up in a wrapper fell out of it. She disengaged the

letter and began reading it at the end. "Preparations shall be

made for your arrival here ... I attach particular significance

to compliance...." she read. She ran on, then back, read it all

through, and once more read the letter all through again from the

beginning. When she had finished, she felt that she was cold all

over, and that a fearful calamity, such as she had not expected,

had burst upon her.

In the morning she had regretted that she had spoken to her

husband, and wished for nothing so much as that those words could

be unspoken. And here this letter regarded them as unspoken, and

gave her what she had wanted. But now this letter seemed to her

more awful than anything she had been able to conceive.