Paul Montague felt that he was surrounded by difficulties as soon as he read the letter.  That his heart was all the other way he was quite sure; but yet it did seem to him that there was no escape from his troubles open to him.  There was not a single word in this woman’s letter that he could contradict.  He had loved her and had promised to make her his wife,—­and had determined to break his word to her because he found that she was enveloped in dangerous mystery.  He had so resolved before he had ever seen Hetta Carbury, having been made to believe by Roger Carbury that a marriage with an unknown American woman,—­of whom he only did know that she was handsome and clever would be a step to ruin.  The...