It was done. The letter was written. What was the particular excuse,
invented fiercely at the moment, there is no use writing down here to
cumber the page. John Arniston cheerfully gave himself over to the
recording angel. Yet the ninth commandment is of equal interpretation,
though it may be somewhat less clearly and tersely expressed than the
seventh.

He went out and posted his note at a pillar-box in a quiet street with
his own hand. The postman had just finished clearing when John came to
thrust in the letter to Miriam Gale. The envelope slid into an empty
receiver as the postman clicked the key. He turned to John with a look
which said--"Too late that time, sir!" But John never so much as noticed
that there was a postman by his side, who shouldered his bags with an
air of official detachment. John Arniston went back to his room, and
while he waited for a book of reference (for articles must be written so
long as the pillars of the firmament stand) he lifted an evening paper
which lay on the table. He ran his eye by instinct over the displayed
cross headings. His eye caught a name. "Found Drowned at Battersea
Bridge--Reginald Gale."

"Reginald Gale," said John to himself--"where did I hear that name?"

Like a flash, every word that Miriam had told him about her worthless
husband--his treatment of her, his desertion within a few days of her
marriage--stood plain before him as if he had been reading the thing in
proof.... Miriam Gale was a free woman.

And his pitiable lying letter? It was posted--lurking in the pillar-box
round the corner, waiting to speed on its way to break the heart of the