Chapter Twenty-Six I Receive a Letter –––––––– MY FRIEND, You will know all when you get this. Nothing that I can say will move Bella. She has gone out to give herself up. I am tired out with struggling. You will know now that I deceived you, that where you gave me trust I repaid you with lies. It will seem, perhaps, indefensible to you, but I should like, before I go out of your life forever, to show you just how it all came about. If I knew that you forgave me, it would make life easier for me. It wasn’t for myself I did it; that’s the only thing I can put forward to say for myself. I’ll begin from the day I met you in the boat train from Paris. I was uneasy then about Bella. She was just desperate about Jack Renauld, she’d have lain down on the ground for him to walk on, and when h

