With a sudden foreboding of
evil, she sat down and opened the letter.
It was very long, written in pencil, and began:
"Before God, I swear you wronged your mother in thinking she believed
what I said about you that day in Pont Street. Before God, I give you my
word. Brigit, I am going to die; I cannot live. I don't like to live.
The world is abominable. I hate everybody. I hate you. I hate God. The
only way I can forget is to take morphine, and it is beginning to go
back on me. Sometimes I don't feel it at all. And it is only the last of
many friends to desert me----"
There were four pages of this, growing more and more incoherent, and
then at the last, the writer went on, his writing suddenly larger and
more distinct, as if he had taken pains to render it legible:
"I am going to die, Brigit, so good-bye. If you would have married me I
should not have done this. It is all your fault. "Gerald Carron."
For an instant her indignation at the incredible cowardice of the man
crushed every other feeling. Then a thrill of horror came over her.
Looking again at the last page she saw below the signature:
"If you will come to see me at five o'clock to-morrow, and are kind to
me, I won't do it.
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