She stood motionless, as if trying to collect herself, and then, with her hands all shaking, took from her traveling-trunk a sealed packet.

For a second she seemed irresolute, and only a second.
"It must be done--it is right.

I ought to have done it before--Good-by forever." Good-by to what--or to whom?
All that the fire revealed, as she laid the packet on it, stirring it down into a red hollow, so that not a flickering fragment should be left unconsumed, were four letters--only four--written on dainty paper, in a man's hand, sealed with a man's large heraldic seal.

When they were mere dust, Christian rose.
"It is over now--quite over.

In the whole world there is nobody to believe in--except him.