So, my lady, here I sit in my study, waiting for that most important day
that is shortly to dawn. A full evening, you must admit. A woman with
the perfume of lilacs about her has threatened that unless I lie I shall
encounter consequences most unpleasant. A handsome young lieutenant has
begged me to tell that same lie for the honor of his family, and thus
condemn him to certain arrest and imprisonment. And I have been
down into hell, to-night and seen Archibald Enwright, of Interlaken,
conniving with the devil.
I presume I should go to bed; but I know I can not sleep. To-morrow
is to be, beyond all question, a red-letter day in the matter of the
captain's murder. And once again, against my will, I am down to play a
leading part.
The symphony of this great, gray, sad city is a mere hum in the distance
now, for it is nearly midnight. I shall mail this letter to you--post
it, I should say, since I am in London--and then I shall wait in my dim
rooms for the dawn. And as I wait I shall be thinking not always of
the captain, or his brother, or Hughes, or Limehouse and Enwright, but
often--oh, very often--of you.
In my last letter I scoffed at the idea of a great war. But when we
came back from Limehouse to-night the papers told us that the Kaiser had
signed the order to mobilize. Austria in; Serbia in; Germany, Russia
and France in. Hughes tells me that England is shortly to follow, and
I suppose there is no doubt of it. It is a frightful thing--this future
that looms before us; and I pray that for you at least it may hold only
happiness.
For, my lady, when I write good night, I speak it aloud as I write; and
there is in my voice more than I dare tell you of now.
THE AGONY COLUMN MAN.
Not unwelcome to the violet eyes of the girl from Texas were the last
words of this letter, read in her room that Sunday morning. But the
lines predicting England's early entrance into the war recalled to her
mind a most undesirable contingency. On the previous night, when the war
extras came out confirming the forecast of his favorite bootblack, her
usually calm father had shown signs of panic. He was not a man slow
to act. And she knew that, putty though he was in her hands in matters
which he did not regard as important, he could also be firm where he
thought firmness necessary. America looked even better to him than
usual, and he had made up his mind to go there immediately. There was no
use in arguing with him.