He took another sheet.
"My dear Princess," he began.
He held his head in his hand.

What could he say?
Ordinary courtesy demanded an acknowledgment of the Princess's message of inquiry.

But to write to her whom he had held close in his arms, whose lips had clung maddeningly to his, in terms of polite convention seemed impossible.
What had she meant by her message?
If she had gone scornfully out of his life, she had gone, and there was an end on't.

Her coming back could bear only one interpretation--that of Jane's passionate statement.

In spite of all, she loved him.