"Dear Cousin Margaret:
"I have decided, suddenly, to go across the pond and get in the big mix-up. You perhaps remember that I have spoken to you frequently of my friend, Paul Caillard who has been with me in many a bit of ticklish work. He was with me in South America, and like me, heard of the war for the first time when he got out of the wilderness. He is a Frenchman, you know, and is going back to offer his services to the engineering corps."
"And I am going with him, Margaret. I think I can be of service over there. Paul Caillard is the best friend I have. As you know you are the only relative I have in the world, and you are happily and safely married, so I feel that I am harming no one by my decision.
"We sail tomorrow morning on the Saturn. It will be impossible for me to come to your home before then. So this is good-by. When I come back, if I come back, I want to meet your husband and see you in your home.
"And now I must speak of a little matter of which you are ignorant, but of which you must be told before I go. Before your mother died, I had made my will, leaving her everything I possessed, for you and she were all the family I had ever known. After her death I changed her name to yours. If anything should happen to me, my attorney, William Faye, 149 Broadway, will attend to everything for you. He is also my executor.
"Most of what I have, would have come to you by law, anyway, Margaret, for you are 'my nearest of kin'—isn't that the way the law puts it? But you might have some unpleasantness from those Pennsylvania cousins of ours, so I have protected you against such a contingency.
"And now, Margaret, good-by and God bless you.
"Your affectionate cousin, Jack."
I finished the letter with a numb feeling at my heart. It seemed to me as if one of the foundations of my life had given away.
When Jack had left me after that miserable reunion dinner where he had been hurt so cruelly by the news of my marriage during his year's absence, he had said—ah, how well I remembered the words—"I shall not see you again, dear girl, unless you need me, if you ever do. I can't be near you without loving you and hating your husband, whoever he may be, and that is a dangerous state of affairs. But wherever I am, a note or a wire to the Hotel Alfred will be forwarded to me, and if the impossible should happen, and your husband, ever fail you, remember Jack is waiting, ready to do anything for you."