It ran as follows:
Infirmary, Zoo.
Dear Josephine,
Your note has come by the messenger. I shall not be free to see you this afternoon, which relieves me from making the decision not to do so. You say that the reason you behave cruelly to me is because you love me. It is because I know that, that I have tried to do without your love. I think you are a character who will always torture the people you love. I cannot bear pain well; that alone makes us unsuited to each other. It is the principal reason why I never wish to see you again.
You are mistaken when you say that you have something of the first importance to tell me. Unless it is something to do with the arrangements which the Zoo authorities make with regard to the Ape-house, it cannot be of importance to me.
Please believe that I bear you no resentment for the past; indeed I still love you, but I mean what I say.
Yours ever,
John Cromartie.
When Josephine had read this letter over twice and had realised that it must have been written after he had been bitten by the ape, and just before his finger was cut off, she gave up her hopes.
Everything she had been feeling was revealed as ridiculous folly. If John could write like that at the moment when he must have been most wishing to escape from confinement, she saw that her plans for his regeneration were impossible. She went up to her room and lay down. All was lost.
That morning Mr. Cromartie had taken his breakfast of rolls, butter, Oxford marmalade, and coffee as usual. When it had been cleared away he began to play ball with the Caracal.