Pontius Pilate ambled up to the house on his fat white cob, dismounted, and brought the mail bag to his mistress, pulled his front hair by way of obeisance, and then remounted his horse and rode away to the stable.
Roma unlocked and emptied the bag.
There were several papers and magazines, but only one letter. She offered the papers to her visitor, who gladly received and unfolded them. Then she took her letter. She recognized it at once—not by the handwriting—there was no handwriting—it was written by a typewriter, perhaps so that it might never be brought in evidence against its author, though Roma could not conjecture why that author thought it necessary to take such a precaution.
Her first impulse was to tear it up and throw it away unread, but anxiety to hear from her loved and lost little Owlet prevailed over her disgust, and she opened and read it.
It was a long, eloquent, impassioned appeal, which we will not inflict upon our readers. It ended in this wild sentence:
“The child is dying—breaking her heart for you! I am losing my reason—going mad for you! Oh, Roma Fronde! what man ever worked, dared and suffered for woman’s love as I have done for yours? Send me a line; say that I may come to you and bring the child, and save us both from death, and me from hell!”
Roma read the letter and passed it over to Dr. Shaw.
He took it, read it, and said:
“The child is with her father; her condition, no doubt, exaggerated.”
“And in any case, I cannot yield. Self-respect, truth, womanhood, must not be sacrificed, even for a beloved child. I must leave her to our Heavenly Father,” said Roma, as she tore the letter to pieces and threw the fragments away.