She found
a letter waiting on her bedside table, side by side with her cup of
tea. Lord Harry had written to her at last.
Whether he used his pen or his tongue, the Irish lord's conduct was
always more or less in need of an apology. Here were the guilty one's
new excuses, expressed in his customary medley of frank confession and
flowery language:
"I am fearing, my angel, that I have offended you. You have too surely
said to yourself, This miserable Harry might have made me happy by
writing two lines--and what does he do? He sends a message in words
which tell me nothing.
"My sweet girl, the reason why is that I was in two minds when your man
stopped me on my way to the ship.
"Whether it was best for you--I was not thinking of myself--to confess
the plain truth, or to take refuge in affectionate equivocation, was
more than I could decide at the time. When minutes are enough for your
intelligence, my stupidity wants days. Well! I saw it at last. A man
owes the truth to a true woman; and you are a true woman. There you
find a process of reasoning--I have been five days getting hold of it.
"But tell me one thing first. Brutus killed a man; Charlotte Corday
killed a man.
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