"I've written and rewritten this ten times; my head is splitting. It seems strange to think it is you and me.
"God bless you always, and our little girl.
"Jim."
Julia finished it with a little grinding sound, like a groan, heard herself make a dramatic exclamation, an "Ah!" of agonized unbelief. She sat down, got up again to take a few irresolute steps toward her desk, and finally went to her bedside telephone, and took down the receiver.
There was a delay; Julia rapped an impatient slipper on the floor, and rattled the hook.
"Western Union, please," she said, a moment later; "I want to send a telegram."
An interval of silence followed. Julia sat staring blankly at the wall. Then she rattled the hook again.
"No matter about that number, Central; I've changed my mind," she said. She walked irresolutely into the middle of the room, stood there a moment frowning, and then turned, to go back and fling herself on her bed, staring up into the dark, the letter crackling as it dropped beside her.
After a while she began to say, "Oh, oh, oh!" quietly and quickly under her breath. The cry grew too much for her, she twisted on her face to stifle it, and after a few moments it stopped. Then she turned on her back again, and said something sharply to herself in a whisper once or twice, and after that the moaning "Oh, oh, oh!" began again.
So Miss Toland found her, when she came into the room without knocking, a little later.