Both letters were addressed in womanly handwriting, but Piers went
unerringly to the one he most desired to read. His hands shook a little
as he opened it, but he caught sight of his Christian name at the head of
it and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Dear Piers,"--so in clear, decided writing the message ran,--"I have
wondered many times if I ought to be angry as well as sorry over that
letter of yours. It was audacious, wasn't it? Only I know so well that
you did not mean to hurt me when you wrote it. But, Piers, what I said
before, you compel me to say again. This thing must stop. You say you are
not a boy, so I shall not treat you as such. But indeed you must take my
word for it when I tell you that I shall never marry again.
"I want to be quite honest with you, so you mustn't think that my two
years of married life were by any means idyllic. They were not. The man I
married was a failure, but I loved him, and because I loved him I
followed him to the world's end. We were engaged two years before we
married. My father disapproved; but when he died I was left lonely, so I
followed Eric, whom I had not seen for eighteen months, to Australia. We
were married in Sydney. He had work at that time in a shipping-office,
but he did not manage to keep it. I did not know why at first. I was
young, and I had always led a sheltered life.
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