In a wild fever Graye went home and watched for the next morning.
Who shall express his misery and wonder when a note containing these
words was put into his hand?

'Good-bye; good-bye for ever. As recognized lovers something
divides us eternally. Forgive me--I should have told you before;
but your love was sweet! Never mention me.'

That very day, and as it seemed, to put an end to a painful
condition of things, daughter and parents left London to pay off a
promised visit to a relative in a western county. No message or
letter of entreaty could wring from her any explanation. She begged
him not to follow her, and the most bewildering point was that her
father and mother appeared, from the tone of a letter Graye received
from them, as vexed and sad as he at this sudden renunciation. One
thing was plain: without admitting her reason as valid, they knew
what that reason was, and did not intend to reveal it.

A week from that day Ambrose Graye left his friend Huntway's house
and saw no more of the Love he mourned. From time to time his
friend answered any inquiry Graye made by letter respecting her.
But very poor food to a lover is intelligence of a mistress filtered
through a friend. Huntway could tell nothing definitely. He said
he believed there had been some prior flirtation between Cytherea
and her cousin, an officer of the line, two or three years before
Graye met her, which had suddenly been terminated by the cousin's
departure for India, and the young lady's travelling on the
Continent with her parents the whole of the ensuing summer, on
account of delicate health. Eventually Huntway said that
circumstances had rendered Graye's attachment more hopeless still.