Perhaps you have already made up your mind what to do, but in case you haven’t, here is my view, for what it’s worth. It’s no exaggeration to say that the last month with you has been the happiest time of my life. I had thought I was beyond all possibility of experiencing love, but you proved me wrong in the nicest possible way.

As you know, I was always uncomfortable about the effect of all this on Margaret, but while the decision had already been made by Gretchen, it was easy enough to go along with the situation—not an admirable moral position, I admit. But the situation has now changed, and if there is any chaÍnce that you and Gretchen can find a way of living together and rededicating yourself to the marriage, putting Margaret’s happiness first, then I think you should take it. She is the innocent party in all this and her needs should override all other considerations. I said this to Gretchen when she first left you and I must stand by it now.

It should go without saying that my feelings for you are the same as ever, and unlikely to change soon. It would be nice to think we could still meet as friends occasionally as we used to when I was first a visitor to Burdett Road. But I can already see that might be difficult and painful, and I will understand if you prefer not to.

Anyway, this was not easy to write and I don’t suppose it’s easy to read, but if I know you at all, I know you will accept what I say is true and do what is best for Margaret.

With love,

Jean

She put it in an envelope and addressed it to Bedford Street, in case Gretchen might already be installed at home. She hunted for a stamp—it was essential that she took it to the mailbox right now while she was resolute and gave herself no chance to weaken. There in a drawer of the bureau was the collection of un-postmarked stamps torn from previous correspondence and saved to be steamed off and reused. A momentary qualm about this practice—disrespectful to the Queen and almost certainly illegal—was allayed by her conviction that it was the sort of shrewd and thrifty thing the Queen would do herself.

She put on her coat and slipped out of the house, closing the door slowly and without a sound. It was only a few hundred yards along the road to the mailbox on the corner of Hambro Avenue. Every house was dark, curtained and hushed. Her footsteps on the cold pavement chimed in the silence as she hurried across the road and past the park railings. The trees stood out black against the velvet sky; she felt exquisitely alone, the only brave survivor of some apocalypse.

She hesitated for a second and then, fortified by a tremendous surge of martyr’s joy, thrust the letter into the mailbox. A child’s pink woolen glove, dropped on a visit to the park, had been picked up by a passer-by and mounted on top of the railings. It gave her a ghostly salute as she passed.