A/N: Just had this running through my head…
He should have broken it off long ago.
Gabriel knew that. Deep down, past the love and the hurt feelings, he knew that what he and Frances had had couldn't go anywhere. She had told him that more times than he could count, but he had always been too stubborn to listen.
If he closed his eyes, he could still see the look on her face that day in the stables—the tears running down her cheeks, only made worse by the horrible things he had said.
It was over. The end. Nine years of hoping that she would finally come around had been for nothing. Fine, he would leave her to her painting. That's what she wanted, wasn't it? That was what she had been working toward for years. Who was he to stand in her way?
Her letters came, almost unexpectedly. Though, when he looked back on it, Gabriel wondered why he was so surprised. Being Frances, she wouldn't understand why they could not go on as they had. She had turned down his proposals before and nothing had had to change. She wouldn't understand his need to move on.
Gabriel had left Huish Priory behind. There was little left for him there, except for his parents, and Lucy. In all honesty, he didn't want to go back. It would hurt too much to see Frances everyday, to go through places that meant so much to them.
So he never answered her letters. He tortured himself by reading each one; more than once he longed to write back, but he kept his silence. Maybe she would give up on him soon enough.
She was wearing him down slowly. He didn't let himself admit it for a long time, but finally he knew. Perhaps it made him a bit pathetic, but he couldn't ignore her anymore.
That morning he wrote her a letter, pouring his heart into it, telling her everything he thought she needed to know. What came next would be up to her.
He left the letter on the kitchen table as he left, not knowing that he wouldn't be coming back.