When could she have heard of the accident, since the next
day she had been taken away? Why had she gone? That was unlike her, to
have given in to any force which could separate them. And if he had
known this step also was unconsciously caused by his own action in
having his letter to Cheiron posted from London, it would have tortured
him the more. Another thought came, and he started forward in his chair.
Was it possible that she had written to him, and that the letter had got
mislaid, among the prodigious quantity which accumulated in those first
days of his unconsciousness?
Then he sank back again. Even if this were so, it was too late now.
Everything was too late--from that awful night when he had become
engaged to Cecilia Cricklander.
She had put the announcement into the paper not quite three weeks after
the accident. What could Halcyone have thought of him and his
unspeakable baseness? Now she could have nothing but loathing and
contempt in her heart, wherever she was--and what right had he to have
broken the beliefs and shattered the happiness of that pure, young soul?
He remembered his old master's words about a man's honor towards women.
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