The handwriting was not strange.

He broke the seal and read these few words: "I have gone.

IRENE." The narrow piece of tinted paper on which this was written dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he stood for some moments still as if death-stricken, and rigid as stone.
"Well," he said audibly, at length, stepping across the floor, "and so the end has come!" He moved to the full length of the chamber and then stood still--turned, in a little while, and walked slowly back across the floor--stood still again, his face bent down, his lips closely shut, his finger-ends gripped into the palms.
"Gone!" He tried to shake himself free of the partial stupor which had fallen upon him.

"Gone!" he repeated.

"And so this calamity is upon us! She has dared the fatal leap! has spoken the irrevocable decree! God help us both, for both have need of help; I and she, but she most.