and pointed to the door.

"I will see you again," said he, "before I quit Paris; leave your address
below."

Vargrave was not, perhaps, unwilling to terminate a scene so painful: he
muttered a few incoherent words, and abruptly withdrew. He heard the
door locked behind him as he departed. Ernest Maltravers was
alone!--what a solitude!



CHAPTER IV.

PITY me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.--_Hamlet_.


LETTER FROM ERNEST MALTRAVERS TO EVELYN CAMERON.


EVELYN!

All that you have read of faithlessness and perfidy will seem tame to you
when compared with that conduct which you are doomed to meet from me. We
must part, and for ever. We have seen each other for the last time. It
is bootless even to ask the cause. Believe that I am fickle, false,
heartless,--that a whim has changed me, if you will. My resolve is
unalterable. We meet no more even as friends. I do not ask you either
to forgive or to remember me. Look on me as one wholly unworthy even of