I sat down, and took one of the thick sheets of paper stamped in red with
"The Gables,
"Ashworth, Yorks,"
and I wrote. This is what I wrote—
"Dear James,—I know now why you have sent me down here. I have seen your Geraldine, and I love her, but I must leave her. It will kill us both, but I have chosen to die. Can you not see that I am your kith and kin, that I am Gerald Wilder? You have no claim on Geraldine, for she is a Sinclair, she is the dead Beatrice returned as a Wilder. I think I see it all now, if one may see anything in such awful darkness. I know, without knowing exactly how I know it, that if we part we shall dream of each other till we die, and that then we shall meet never to be separated, but if we remain together some fearful thing will happen and divide us, so that we may never meet again.
If I loved your son all would be right, but it is not Gerald I love, but Geraldine—Beatrice.
I am leaving here early to-morrow morning, going, I don't know where. I shall write to you.
Signed,
Gerald Wilder."
Then I directed an envelope—
JAMES WILDER, Esq.,
No. — Berkeley Square,
London.
I put the letter in. I gummed it. Then I began to search for a stamp. I felt that I must stamp it to add a kind of security to my purpose, though the post did not leave until noon on the morrow. What a search I had for that stamp. I rummaged all my dress pockets; at last I found my purse,—there were two stamps in it.
I stamped the letter carefully. I held it in my hands as I sat over the fire. Then, without any apparent reason, I tore the letter slowly up into four pieces, then into eight. Then I placed the pieces carefully on the burning coals in the grate. I watched the stamp burning and thought it was a pity to see it burn, for it was worth a penny. I saw the d e r letters of Wilder stand out white on a bit of the burnt envelope.
Then I took the poker and poked at the bits of paper ash.
I was thinking.