But she didn't yet perceive, obvious as
it seemed, that Harry thought she herself had written "Egeria's" letter
in her own person. She thought still he was in love with Dora, and had
drowned himself because he couldn't tear himself away from her for ever. V.

They brought Harry Pallant ashore, cold and lifeless, and carried him up
in haste to the hotel. There the village doctor saw him at once, and
detected a faint tremor of the heart. At the end of an hour the lungs
began to act faintly of themselves, and the heart beat a little in some
feeble fashion. With care Harry Pallant came round, but it took a week or two before he
was himself again, and Louie nursed him meanwhile in fear and
trembling, with breathless agony. She had one consolation--Harry loved
her. In the long nights the whole truth dawned upon her, clear and
certain. She saw how Harry had opened the letter, had jumped at once to
the natural conclusion, and had tried to drown himself in order to
release her. Oh, why had he not trusted her? Why had he not asked her? A
woman naturally thinks like that; a man knows in his own soul that a man
could never possibly do so. She dared not tell him yet, for fear of a relapse. She could only wait
and watch, and nurse him tenderly. And all the time she knew he
distrusted her--knew he thought her a hypocrite and a traitor. For
Harry's sake she had to bear it. At last, one day, when he was getting very much stronger, and could sit
up in a chair and look bitterly out at the sea, she said to him in a
gentle voice, very tentatively, "Harry, Dora Ferrand and her husband
have gone to spend the summer in Norway." Harry groaned. "How do you know?" he asked. "Has Hugh written to you? What is it to us? Who told you about it?" Louie bit her lip hard to keep back the tears. "Dora telegraphed to me
herself," she answered softly. "She telegraphed to me as soon as
ever"--she hesitated a moment--"as soon as ever she saw your answer to
her in the _Monitor_." Harry's face grew white with horror. "My answer to _her_!" he cried in a
ghastly voice, not caring to ask at the moment how Louie came to know it
was he who wrote the answers in the _Young People's Monitor_. "My answer
to _you_, you mean, Louie. It was your letter--yours, not Dora's. You
can't deceive me. I read it myself. My poor child, I saw your
handwriting." It was an awful thing that, in spite of all, he must have it out with
her against his will; but he would not flinch from it--he would settle
it then and there, once and for ever. She had introduced it herself; she
had brought it down upon her own head. He would not flinch from it. It
was his duty to tell her. Louie laid her hand upon his arm. He did not try to cast it off. "Harry," she said, imploringly, persuasively, "there is a terrible
mistake here--a terrible misunderstanding. It was unavoidable; you could
not possibly have thought otherwise. But oh, Harry, if you knew the
suffering you have brought upon me, you would not speak so, darling--you
would not speak so." Harry turned towards her passionately and eagerly. "Then you didn't want
me to die, Louie?" he cried in a hoarse voice. "You didn't really want
to get rid of me?" Louie withdrew her hand hastily as if she had been stung. "Harry," she
gasped, as well as she was able, "you misunderstood that letter
altogether. It was not mine--it was Dora Ferrand's. Dora wrote it, and I
only copied it. If you will listen a minute I will tell you all, all
about it." Harry flung himself back half incredulously on his chair, but with a
new-born hope lighting up in part the gloom of his recovered existence. "I went over to Dora Ferrand's the day after the Ogilvies' dance," Louie
began tremulously, "and I found Dora sitting in her boudoir writing a
letter. I walked up without being announced, and when Dora saw me she
screamed a little, and then she grew as red as fire, and burst out
crying, and tried to hide the letter she was writing. So I went up to
her and began to soothe her, and asked her what it was, and wanted to
read it. And Dora cried for a long time, and wouldn't tell me, and was
dreadfully penitent, and said she was very, very miserable. So I said,
'Dora, is there anything wrong between you and Mr. Ferrand?' And she
said, 'Nothing, Louie; I give you my word of honour, nothing. Poor
Wetherby's as kind to me as anybody could be. But----' And then she
began crying again as if her heart would burst, worse than ever. And I
took her head on my shoulder, and said to her, 'Dora, is it that you
feel you don't love him?' And Dora was in a dreadfully penitent fit, and
she flung herself away from me, and said to me, 'Oh, Louie, don't touch
me! Don't kiss me! Don't come near me! I'm not fit to associate with a
girl like you, dear.... Oh, Louie, I don't love him; and--what's
worse--I love somebody else, darling.' Well, then, of course, I was
horribly shocked, and I said, 'Dora, Dora, this is awfully wicked of
you!' And Dora cried worse than before, and sobbed away, and wouldn't be
comforted. And there was a copy of the _Monitor_ lying on the table, and
I saw it open at the correspondence, and I said, 'Were you writing for
advice to the _Monitor_, Dora?' And she looked up and nodded 'Yes.' So I
coaxed her and begged her to show me the letter, and at last she showed
it to me; but she wouldn't tell me who she was in love with, Harry; and,
oh, Harry, my darling, my darling, I never so much as dreamt of its
being you, dear--the thought never even crossed my mind. I ran over
everybody I could imagine she'd taken a fancy to, but I never for a
moment thought of you, darling. I suppose, Harry, I loved you too dearly
even to suspect it. And then, I dare say, Dora saw I didn't suspect it;
but, anyhow, she went on and finished the letter--it was nearly done
when I came in to her--and after that she said she couldn't bear to send
it in her own handwriting, for fear anybody should know her and
recognize it. So I said if she liked I'd copy it out for her, for by
that time I was crying just as hard as she was, and so sorry for her and
for poor Mr. Ferrand; and it never struck me that anybody could ever
possibly think that I wrote it about myself. And--and--and that's all,
Harry." Harry listened, conscience-smitten, to the artless recital, which bore
its own truth on the very surface of it, as it fell from Louie's
trembling lips, and then he held her off at arm's length when she tried
to fall upon his neck and kiss him, whispering in a loud undertone, "Oh,
Louie, Louie, don't, don't! I don't deserve it! I have been too
wicked--too mistrustful!" Louie drew forth a letter from her pocket and handed it to him silently. It was in Dora's handwriting. He read it through in breathless anxiety. "Louie,--I dare not call you anything else now. You know it all by
     this time. We have heard about Harry's accident from your sister. Nobody but ourselves knows it was not an accident. And I have seen
     the answer in the _Monitor_. Of course Harry wrote it.