The week passed: he telegraphed: there was no reply: he had sudden fears for her personal safety and resolved to break her command by writing.
'STANCY CASTLE, April 13.
'DEAR PAULA,--Are you ill or in trouble?
It is impossible in the very unquiet state you have put me into by your silence that I should abstain from writing.

Without affectation, you sorely distress me, and I think you would hardly have done it could you know what a degree of anxiety you cause.

Why, Paula, do you not write or send to me?
What have I done that you should treat me like this?
Do write, if it is only to reproach me.

I am compelled to pass the greater part of the day in this castle, which reminds me constantly of you, and yet eternally lacks your presence.

I am unfortunate indeed that you have not been able to find half-an-hour during the last month to tell me at least that you are alive.
'You have always been ambiguous, it is true; but I thought I saw encouragement in your eyes; encouragement certainly was in your eyes, and who would not have been deluded by them and have believed them sincere?
Yet what tenderness can there be in a heart that can cause me pain so wilfully! 'There may, of course, be some deliberate scheming on the part of your relations to intercept our letters; but I cannot think it.