cried, crushing my hand against my mouth to keep down
the cry of anguish and despair which tore its way up from my heart.
"Before other hands touch her, other eyes see her, tell me when she
began--I will not say to love me, but to weary for me
and--Homewood."

"Perhaps she has told you herself. Here is the letter, sir, she
bade me give you if she did not reach here alive. She wrote it this
morning, after the doctor told her what I have said."

"Give--give--"

She put it in my hand. I glanced at it in the moonlight, read the
first few words, and felt the world reel round me. Thrusting the
letter in my breast, I bade the woman, who watched me with
fascinated eyes, to go now and rouse the house. When she was gone I
stepped back into the shadows, and catching hold of the murderous
beast, I dragged him out and about the wall to a thick clump of
bushes. Here I left him and went back to my darling. When they came
in, they found her in my arms. Her head had fallen back and I was
staring, staring, at her white throat.

That night, when all was done for her which could be done, I shut
myself into my library and again opened that precious letter. I
give it, to show how men may be mistaken when they seek to weigh
women's souls:

_My Husband_:

I love you. As I shall be dead when you read this, I may say so
without fear of rebuff. I did not love you then; I did not love
anybody; I was thoughtless and fond of pleasure, and craved
affectionate words. He saw this and worked on my folly; but when
his project failed and I saw his boat creep away, I found that what
feeling I had was for the man who had thwarted him, and I felt
myself saved.

If I had not taken cold that night I might have lived to prove
this. I know that you do not love me very much, but perhaps you
would have done so had you seen me grow a little wiser and more
like what your wife should be. I was trying when--O Philo, I can
not write--I can not think. I am coming to you--I
love--forgive--and take me back again, alive or dead. I love
you--I love--

As I finished, the light, which had been burning low, suddenly went
out. The window which opened before me was still unshuttered. Before
me, across the wide spaces of the lawn, shone the pavilion wall,
white in the moo