Quivering with pain and terror, the young girl cast the letter into
the fire, thinking that it was the work of one of those half-crazed
beings whose mania takes the form of anonymous letters to unoffending
people. Only recently such a person had been brought into the courts
for this offence. It occurred to her also that it might be the work
of someone who wished to obtain her position as organist of St
Blank's. Musicians, she knew, were said to be the most jealous of
all people, and while she had never suffered from them before, it
might be that her time had now come to experience the misfortunes of
her profession.
Tender-hearted and kindly in feeling to all humanity, she felt a
sickening sense of sorrow and fear at the thought that there existed
such a secret enemy for her anywhere in the world.
She went out upon the street, and for the first time in her life she
experienced a sense of suspicion and distrust toward the people she
met; for the first time in her life, she realised that the world was
not all kind and ready to give her back the honest friendship and the
sweet good-will which filled her heart for all her kind. Strive as
she would, she could not cast off the depression caused by this vile
letter. It was her first experience of this cowardly and despicable
phase of human malice, and she felt wounded in soul as by a poisoned
arrow shot in the dark. And then, suddenly, there came to her the
memory of her mother's words--"If unhappiness ever comes to you, read
this letter."
Surely this was the time she needed to read that letter. That it
contained some secret of her mother's life she felt sure, and she was
equally sure that it contained nothing that would cause her to blush
for that beloved mother.
"Whatever the manuscript may have to reveal to me," she said, "it is
time that I should know." She took the package from the hiding
place, and broke the seal. Slowly she read it to the end, as if
anxious to make no error in understanding every phase of the long
story it related. Beginning with the marriage of her mother to the
French professor, Berene gave a detailed account of her own sad and
troubled life, and the shadow which the father's appetite for drugs
cast over her whole youth. "They say," she wrote, "that there is no
personal devil in existence. I think this is true; he has taken the
form of drugs and spirituous liquors, and so his work of devastation
goes on." Then followed the story of the sacrilegious marriage to
save her father from suicide, of her early widowhood; and the proffer
of the Baroness to give her a home. Of her life of servitude there,
her yearning for an education, and her meeting with "Apollo," as she
designated Preston Cheney. "For truly he was like the glory of the
rising day to me, the first to give me hope, courage and unselfish
aid. I loved him, I worshipped him. He loved me, but he strove to
crush and kill this love because he had worked out an ambitious
career for himself. To extricate himself from many difficulties and
embarrassments, and to further his ambitious dreams, he betrothed
himself to the daughter of a rich and powerful man. He made no
profession of love, and she asked none. She was incapable of giving
or inspiring that holy passion. She only asked to be married.