Trembling and breathless, I ran up the stairs, the two gentlemen following me. The address of the letter was in my husband’s handwriting. My heart sank in me as I looked at the lines; there could be but one reason for his writing to me. That closed envelope held his farewell words. I sat with the letter on my lap, stupefied, incapable of opening it.
Kind-hearted Benjamin attempted to comfort and encourage me. The Major, with his larger experience of women, warned the old man to be silent.
“Wait!” I heard him whisper. “Speaking to her will do no good now. Give her time.”
Acting on a sudden impulse, I held out the letter to him as he spoke. Even moments might be of importance, if Eustace had indeed left me. To give me time might be to lose the opportunity of recalling him.
“You are his old friend,” I said. “Open his letter, Major, and read it for me.”
Major Fitz-David opened the letter and read it through to himself. When he had done he threw it on the table with a gesture which was almost a gesture of contempt.
“There is but one excuse for him,” he said. “The man is mad.”
Those words told me all. I knew the worst; and, knowing it, I could read the letter. It ran thus:
“MY BELOVED VALERIA—When you read these lines you read my farewell words. I return to my solitary unfriended life—my life before I knew you.
“My darling, you have been cruelly treated. You have been entrapped into marrying a man who has been publicly accused of poisoning his first wife—and who has not been honorably and completely acquitted of the charge. And you know it!