He had no other friend in whom he could confide.  There was no other human being he could trust, unless it was Hetta herself.  He thought for a moment that he would write a stern and true letter to the woman, telling her that as it was impossible that there should ever be marriage between them, he felt himself bound to abstain from her society.  But then he remembered her solitude, her picture of herself in London without even an acquaintance except himself, and he convinced himself that it would be impossible that he should leave her without seeing her.  So he wrote to her thus:—­

   Dear Winifred,

I will come for you to-morrow at half-past five.  We will dine together at the Thespian;—­and then I will have a box at the Haymarket.  The...