‘But she did, sir.’
‘Am I labouring under some horrible nightmare?’ exclaimed the publisher, ‘or are we playing at cross purposes? Can you mean the Miss Cray I mean?’
‘I am speaking of Miss Charlotte Cray, sir, the author of “Sweet Gwendoline,”—the lady who has undertaken so much of our compilation the last two years, and who has a long nose, and wears her hair in curls. I never knew there was another Miss Cray; but if there are two, that is the one I mean.’
‘Still I cannot believe it, Hewetson, for the Miss Cray who has been associated with our firm died on the twenty-fifth of last month.’
‘Died, sir! Is Miss Cray dead? Oh, it can’t be! It’s some humbugging trick that’s been played upon you, for I’d swear she was in this room yesterday afternoon, as full of life as she’s ever been since I knew her. She didn’t talk much, it’s true, for she seemed in a hurry to be off again, but she had got on the same dress and bonnet she was in here last, and she made herself as much at home in the office as she ever did. Besides,’ continued Hewetson, as though suddenly remembering something, ‘she left a note for you, sir.’
‘A note! Why did you not say so before?’
‘It slipped my memory when you began to doubt my word in that way, sir. But you’ll find it in the bronze vase. She told me to tell you she had placed it there.’
Mr Braggett made a dash at the vase, and found the three-cornered note as he had been told. Yes! it was Charlotte’s handwriting, or the facsimile of it, there was no doubt of that; and his hands shook so he could hardly open the paper. It contained these words:
‘You tell me that I am not to call at your office again, except on business, nor to send letters to your private address, lest it should come to the knowledge of your wife, and create unpleasantness between you; but I shall call, and I shall write until I have seen Mrs Braggett, and if you don’t take care I will introduce myself to her, and tell her the reason you have been afraid to do so.’
Precisely the same words, in the same writing of the letter he still carried in his breast-pocket, and which no mortal eyes but his and hers had ever seen. As the unhappy man sat gazing at the opened note, his whole body shook as if he were attacked by ague.