The words were doubly underlined, they were unmistakable, yet he had to read them over and over again before he was able to grasp their meaning. What did they mean? Had his darling suddenly gone mad? The written sheet swam before his eyes. It was with an effort he read on.
"How you ever came to mistake me for her I cannot understand. The more I have thought of it, the stranger it has seemed. I suppose there must be a resemblance between us--between your Nelly and me. Though I expect the resemblance is more to the face in Mr. Bodenham's picture than it is to mine. I never did think the woman in Mr. Bodenham's picture was like me--though I was his model. I never could have been the original of your photograph of Nelly--it is not in the least like me. I think that you came to England with your heart and mind and eyes so full of Nelly, and so eager for a sight of her, that, in your great hunger of love, you grasped at the first chance resemblance you encountered. That is the only explanation I can think of, Tom, of how you can have mistaken me for her.
"My part is easier to explain. It is quite true, as I told you, that I was starving when you came to me. I was so weak and faint, and sick at heart, that your sudden appearance and strange behaviour--in a perfect stranger, for you were a perfect stranger, Tom--drove from me the few senses I had left. When I recovered I found myself in the arms of a man who seemed to know me, and who spoke to me words of love--words which I had never heard from the lips of a man before. I sent you to buy me food. While you were gone I told myself--wickedly! I know, Tom it was wickedly!--what a chance had come at last, which would save me from the river, at least for a time, and I should be a fool to let it slip. I perceived that you were mistaking me for some one else. I resolved to allow you to continue under your misapprehension. I did not doubt that you would soon discover your mistake. What would happen then I did not pause to think. But events marched quicker than I, in that first moment of mad impulse, had bargained for. You never did discover your mistake. How that was, even now I do not understand. But you began to talk of marriage. That was a prospect I dared not face.
"For one thing--forgive me for writing it, but I must write it, now that I am writing to you for the first and for the last time--I began to love you. Not for the man I supposed you to be, but for the man I knew you were. I loved you--and I love you! I shall never cease to love you, with a love of which I did not think I was capable. As I told you, Tom, last night--when I kissed you!--I love you better than my own life. Better, far better, for my life is worthless, and you--you are not worthless, Tom! And I would not--even had I dared!--allow you to marry me; not for myself, but for another; not for the present, but for the past; not for the thing I was, but for the thing which you supposed I had been, once. I would have married you for your own sake; you would not have married me for mine. And so, since I dared not undeceive you--I feared to see the look which would come in your face and your eyes--I am going to steal back, like a thief, to the life from which you took me. I have had a greater happiness than ever I expected. I have enjoyed those stolen kisses which they say are sweetest. Your happiness is still to come. You will find Nelly. Such love as yours will not go unrewarded. I have been but an incident, a chapter in your life, which now is closed. God bless you, Tom! I am yours, although you are not mine--not yours, Nelly Brock--but yours, Helen Reeves."
Mr. Gibbs read this letter once, then twice, and then again. Then he rang the bell. The landlady appeared with a suspicious promptitude which suggested the possibility of her having been a spectator of his proceedings through the keyhole.
"When did Miss Brock go out?"
"Quite early, sir. I'm sure, sir, I was quite taken aback when she said that she was going--on her wedding-day and all."
"Did she say where she was going?"
"Not a word, sir. She said: 'Mrs. Horner, I am going away. Give this letter to Mr. Gibbs when he comes.' That was every word she says, sir; then she goes right out of the front door."
"Did she take any luggage?"