The third--the third is too long to quote entire; besides, the substance
is contained in this last sentence--

"So I think, my dear Mr. Lyndsay, for your sake more than my own,
our engagement had better be broken off."

In this letter, dated six weeks ago, she had charged me to burn all that
she had written to me, and as yet I had not done so, shrinking from the
sharp unreasonable pain with which we bury the beloved dead. But the
time of my mourning was accomplished. I tore the paper into fragments
and dropped them into the flames.

It must have been the pang with which I watched them darken and shrivel
that brought back the memory of another sharp stab. It was that day ten
years ago, when I walked for the first time after my accident. Supported
by a stick on one side, and by Atherley on the other, I crawled down the
long gallery at home and halted before a high wide-open window to see
the sunlit view of park and woods and distant downland. Then all at
once, ridden by my groom, Charming went past with feet that verily
danced upon the greensward, and quivering nostrils that rapturously
inhaled the breath of spring and of morning. I said: "George, I want
_you_ to have Charming." And it made me smile, even in that bitter
moment, to remember how indistinctly, how churlishly almost, Atherley
accepted the gift, in his eager haste to get me out of sight and thought
of it.

It was long before the last fluttering rags had vanished, transmuted
into fiery dust. The clock on the landing had many times chanted its
dirge since I had heard below the footsteps of the servants carrying