"Strange fits of passion I have known.
And I will dare to tell."--WORDSWORTH.

"* * * * * The food of hope
Is meditated action."--WORDSWORTH.

MALTRAVERS left Doningdale the next day. He had no further conversation
with Valerie; but when he took leave of her, she placed in his hand a
letter, which he read as he rode slowly through the beech avenues of the
park. Translated, it ran thus:


"Others would despise me for the weakness I showed--but you will not!
It is the sole weakness of a life. None can know what I have passed
through--what hours of dejection and gloom. I, whom so many envy!
Better to have been a peasant girl, with love, than a queen whose life
is but a dull mechanism. You, Maltravers, I never forgot in absence;
and your image made yet more wearisome and trite the things around me.
Years passed, and your name was suddenly on men's lips. I heard of you
wherever I went--I could not shut you from me. Your fame was as if you
were conversing by my side. We met at last, suddenly and unexpectedly.
I saw that you loved me no more, and that thought conquered all my
resolves: anguish subdues the nerves of the mind as sickness those of
the body. And thus I forgot, and humbled, and might have undone myself.
Juster and better thoughts are once more awakened within me, and when we
meet again I shall be worthy of your respect. I see how dangerous are
that luxury of thought, that sin of discontent which I indulged. I go
back to life, resolved to vanquish all that can interfere with its
claims and duties. Heaven guide and preserve you, Ernest. Think of me