To Win the Love He Sought

I suppose it is absurd to talk about presentiments, and yet I knew what was in that letter. As plainly as though I saw it written up in characters of fire, I knew its contents and my doom. The climax of all things was at hand. The time was approaching when I must keep my vow, or confess myself foresworn -- an unworthy daughter of the Marionis. It was a bitter choice, for there was a life in either balance; the life of this traitress of five-and-twenty years ago, or of an old man sick to the heart with disappointment; deceived by a woman in his youth, and a woman again in his old age.

I bathed my eyes and face, and, throwing off my wet things, wrapped myself in a dressing robe. Then I poured out a cup of tea and drank it over the fire. All the while that letter lay before me on the tray, face upward, and my eyes kept straying unwillingly toward it. It had a sort of fascination for me, and in the end it conquered. I had meant to give myself a few hours' more freedom -- to have put it away until bedtime, but a sudden impulse came to me, and I yielded. I caught it up with firm fingers and tore it open.