"To New York—and damn the speed laws."
In a moment they had rushed by me like the flash of a lightning express, and Henriette was gone!
You must know the rest. The papers the next day were full of the elopement in high life. They told how the Scrappe divorce had been granted at five o'clock in the afternoon the day before, how Colonel Scrappe and Mrs. Van Raffles had sped to New York in the automobile and been quietly married at the Little Church Around the Corner, and were now sailing down the bay on the Hydrostatic, bound for foreign climes. They likewise intimated that a very attractive lady of more than usual effusiveness of manner, whose nuptials were expected soon to be published for the second time, had gone to a sanitarium in Philadelphia to be treated for a sudden and overwhelming attack of nervous hysteria.
It was all too true, that tale. Henriette's final coup had been successful, and she had at one stroke stolen her landlord, her landlady's husband, and her neighbor's fiancé. To console me she left this note, written on board of the steamer and mailed by the pilot.
On Board the Hydrostatic.
Off Sandy Hook, September 10, 1904.
Dear Bunny,—I couldn't help it. The minute I saw him I felt that I must have him. It's the most successful haul yet and is the last adventure I shall ever have. He's worth forty million dollars. I'm sorry for you, dear, but it's all in the line of business. To console you I have left in your name all that we have won together in our partnership at Newport—fourteen millions five hundred and sixty-three thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven dollars in cash, and about three million dollars in jewels, which you must negotiate carefully. Good-bye, dear Bunny, I shall never forget you, and I wish you all the happiness in the world. With the funds now in your possession why not retire—go home to England and renew your studies for the ministry? The Church is a noble profession.
Sincerely yours,
Henriette Van Raffles-Scrappe.
I have gathered together these meagre possessions—rich in bullion value, but meagre in happiness, considering all that might have been, and to-morrow I sail for London. There, following Henriette's advice, I shall enter the study of the ministry, and when I am ordained shall buy a living somewhere and settle down to the serene existence of the preacher, the pastor of a flock of human sheep.
