I ask for no repair of the inextinguishable wrong you have done me.
I only ask you not to fancy that I am to be beguiled by arguments or
denials or moved by threats, or that one word I here write is founded
on conjecture or inference. Grovelling at my feet, in sobs of shame
and with prayers for pardon, Isabel has told me all. Has told me all,
Leonard Byington, my once trusted friend. Now, though prostrated on
her bed, she rejoices in the double forgiveness of her husband and
her priest, blessing him for deliverance from the misleadings of one
who--great God! must I write it?--might at last have dragged her into
crime. It is her request, as it is my command, that you darken our
threshold no more, and that as far as practicable you keep yourself
from her sight.
Faithfully,
ARTHUR WINSLOW.
With his swivel-chair overturned behind him the young lawyer stood at
the desk of his inner office, read this letter through at headlong
speed, turned it again, and re-read it slowly, searchingly, from his own
name to its writer's.
Then readjusting his chair he stepped to a door, asked a clerk in the
outer office to order his cutter, turned back, and was closing his desk,
when his partner came to him.
"Byington, are you ill?" asked the fatherly man.
"No; I'm only going out on some business. I'll be back about--" He
looked at his watch.
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