That evening as Miss Woodhull sat by her study table reading a tap came upon her door and Eleanor entered at the word “Come.”
Miss Woodhull was not over-pleased at being interrupted in the midst of a thrilling article on the Suffrage question and the militant doings of her wronged sisters in England. “Well?” she queried crisply.
“I would like to speak to you, Miss Woodhull.”
“Very well, speak,” was the terse reply.
This was somewhat disconcerting. Eleanor coughed.
“Will you be good enough to state your errand without further peroration. I do not relish being interrupted in my reading.”
“I—I—thought I ought to tell you,—to show you—I mean you ought to see this note which I found,” and Eleanor crossed the room to Miss Woodhull’s side, the note held toward her.
She took it, asking as she did so: “Why come to me about so trivial a matter? What is it? Where did you find it?”
“I didn’t think it trivial and that is why I came right to you,” Eleanor replied, ignoring the embarrassing questions.
Miss Woodhull opened the note. The first line acted like a galvanic shock. She sat up rigid as a lamp post. The words were “Darling Little Sweetheart:—” Then she read on: