What shall I do? I am invited to New York, I, and Charles says I may go, too—only I have nothing to wear. Oh, for some money! a little money! it is my right to have some money; but Charles tells me he can only spare enough to pay my expenses, that my Sunday frock looks very well, and that, even if it did not, I am pretty enough to do without fine clothes, and other nonsense like that,—sweet enough, but totally without point, in fact. If I am pretty, all the more I need a little finery to set me off, and, besides, to go to New York without money—why, I should be perfectly miserable. Charles himself ought to realize this, and be willing to sell his old books before he would let me go into this whirl of temptation without a dollar to spend. As he don't, I must devise some plan of my own for obtaining a little money, for I won't give up my trip—the first offered me since I was married,—and neither will I go away and come back without a gift for my two girls, who have grown to womanhood without a jewel to adorn them or a silk dress to make them look like gentlemen's children. But how get money without Charles knowing it? Mr. Trohm is such a good friend, he might lend me a little, but I don't know how to ask him without recalling to his mind certain words long since forgotten by him perhaps, but never to be forgotten by me, feather-brained as many people think me. Is there any one else?
I wonder if some things are as wicked as people say they are. I——
Here the diary breaks off abruptly. But we know what followed. The forgery, the discovery of it by her suave but secret enemy, his unnatural revenge, and the never-dying enmity which led to the tragic events it has been my unhappy fortune to relate at such length. Poor Althea! with thy name I write finis to these pages. May the dust lie lightly on thy breast under the shadow of the Flower Parlor, through which thy footsteps passed with such dread in the old days of thy youthful beauty and innocence!
THE END
WORKS BY Anna Katharine Green
The Leavenworth Case.
A Strange Disappearance.
The Sword of Damocles.
Hand and Ring.
The Mill Mystery.
Behind Closed Doors.
Cynthia Wakeham's Money.
Marked "Personal."
Miss Hurd: An Enigma.
Dr. Izard.
That Affair Next Door.
Lost Man's Lane.
Agatha Webb.
The Old Stone House.
The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock.
X. Y. Z. A Detective Story.
7 to 12. A Detective Story.
The Defence of the Bride.
Risifi's Daughter. A Drama.