This won’t be delivered to you until I’m out at sea. I’m going abroad. You’ll not see me again. I’m only in the way—a burden to you and a disgrace to Mary. You’ll find out soon enough how I’ve gone, without my telling you. Perhaps I’m crazy—I never did have much self-control. But I’m gone, and gone for good, and you’re left free with your beloved Mary.
I know you hate me and I can’t stand feeling it any longer. I couldn’t be any more miserable, no, nor you either. And we may both be happier. I never loved anybody but you—I suppose I still love you, but I must get away where I won’t feel that I’m always being condemned.
Don’t think I’m blaming you—I’m not so crazy as that.
Try to think of me as gently as—no, don’t think of me—forget me—teach Mary to forget me. I’m crying, Robert, as I write this. But then I’ve done a lot of that since I realised that not even for your sake could I shake off the curse my father put on me before I was born.
Good-bye, Robert. Good-bye, Mary. I put the ring—the one you gave me when we were married—in the little box in the top drawer of your chiffonière where you keep your scarf-pins. I hope I shan’t live long. If I had been brave, I’d have killed myself long ago.
Good-bye,
Marguerite.
One sentence in her letter blazed before his mind—“You’ll find out soon enough how I’ve gone, without my telling you.” What did she mean? In her half-crazed condition had she done something that would be notorious, would be remembered against Mary? He pressed the electric button. “Ask Mr. Vandewater to come here at once, please,” he said to the boy. Vandewater, the dramatic news reporter, hurried in. “I’m about to ask a favour of you, Vandewater,” he said to him, “and I hope you’ll not speak of it. Do you know any one at the Gold and Glory—well, I mean?”
“Mayer, the press agent, and I are pretty close.”
“Will you call him up and ask him—tell him it’s personal and private—what he knows about Miss Feronia’s movements lately. Use this telephone here.”
At “Miss Feronia,” Vandewater looked conscious and nervous. Like all the newspaper men, he knew of the “romance” in Stilson’s life, and, like many of the younger men, he admired and envied him because of the fascinating mystery of his relations with the famous dancer.