‘She replied: “Why, Mr. Featherstone, I am getting an honest living.”
‘I said again: “Marry me.”
‘I could not argue.
‘She said: “A year ago I would have married you. I liked you. But I cannot marry you now.”
‘I asked madly: “Why?”
‘She replied: “Things have happened in the meantime.”
‘I returned to London last night and bought a revolver. It is my intention to kill myself in Mr. Craig’s own room while he is out at lunch. This seems to me proper, but I may be mad. Who knows? My brain may be unhinged. As for my oath of secrecy, Raphael Craig cannot demand secrecy from a dead man. If this document leads to his punishment, let it. I care not. And Juana, as she says herself, is getting an honest living. She is independent of her terrible father.
‘It is half-past one o’clock in the morning.
In twelve hours I shall be in the beyond. I will place this statement in a vase on the mantelpiece. Let who will find it.
‘Given under my dying hand,