what to say to you, for it is difficult to put all I feel in words.  I am overwhelmed, my spirit is broken, and I wish to heaven that I were dead.  Sometimes I almost cease to believe in a God who can allow His creatures to be so tormented and give us love only that it may be daily dishonoured in our sight; but who am I that I should complain, and after all what are our troubles compared to some we know of?  Well, it will come to an end at last, and meanwhile pity me and think of me.

“Pity me and think of me; yes, but never see me more.  As soon as this engagement is publicly announced, go away, the further the better.  Yes, go to New Zealand, as you suggested once, and in pity of our human weakness never let me see your face again.  Perhaps you may write to me sometimes—­if Mr. Cossey will allow it.  Go there and occupy yourself, it will divert your mind—­you are still too young a man to lay yourself upon the shelf—­mix yourself up with the politics of the place, take to writing; anything, so long as you can absorb yourself.  I sent you a photograph of myself (I have nothing better) and a ring which I have worn night and day since I was a child.  I think that it will fit your little finger and I hope you will always wear it in memory of me.  It was my mother’s.  And now it is late and I am tired, and what is there more that a woman can say to the man she loves—­and whom she must leave for ever?  Only one word—­Good-bye.  Ida.”

When Harold got this letter it fairly broke him down.  His hopes had been revived when he thought that all was lost, and now again they were utterly dashed and broken.  He could see no way out of it, none at all.  He could not quarrel with Ida’s decision, shocking as it was, for the simple reason that he knew in his heart she was acting rightly and even nobly.  But, oh, the thought of it made him mad.  It is probable that to a man of imagination and deep feeling hell itself can invent no more hideous torture than he must undergo in the position in which Harold Quaritch found himself.  To truly love some good woman or some woman whom he thinks good—­for it comes to the same thing—­to love her more than life, to hold her dearer even than his honour, to be, like Harold, beloved in turn; and then to know that this woman, this one thing for which he would count the world well lost, this light that makes his days beautiful, has been taken from him by the bitterness of Fate (not by Death, for that he could bear), taken from him, and given —­for money or money’s worth—­to some other man!  It is, perhaps, better that a man should die than that he should pass through such an experience as that which threatened Harold Quaritch now:  for though the man die not, yet will it kill all that is best in him; and whatever triumphs may await him, whatever women may be ready in the future to pin their favours to his breast, life will never be for him what it might have been, because his lost love took its glory with her.