"Mamma, if you don't tell me I shall write and ask him." Her mother looked up, frightened.
"You wouldn't do that, Mary?"
"Oh, wouldn't I though! I'd do it like a shot."
She wondered why she hadn't thought of it an hour ago.
"Well—If there's no other way to stop you—"
Her mother gave her the letter, picking it up by one corner, as though it had been a dirty pocket-handkerchief.
"It'll show you," she said, "the sort of man he is."
Mary held the letter in both her hands, gently. Her heart beat gently now with a quiet feeling of happiness and satisfaction. She looked a long time at the characters, the long-tailed M's, the close, sharp v's, the t's crossed with a savage, downward stab. She was quiet as long as she only looked. When she read the blood in her brain raced faster and confused her. She stopped at the bottom of the first page.
"I can't think what he means."
"It's pretty plain what he means," her mother said.