I have unfastened the silken cord from the drapes and knotted it to the gas fixture above. It hangs there, waiting for me to step upon this velvet chair where I sit, tie its far descending end to my neck, and step from this world, freeing it from the guilt and troubles Annie Quincy has caused.
I only ask this of you, my dearest Joshua; that you not tell my family how I lived, and that you mourn not my passing. I would choose not to alter a single element of my life if in so doing it would eliminate even an instant of the time we've spent together. But you have your life and your duties to others and I must stop wounding your conscience and let you go your destined way. I thank my God that I too had you, if only for a little while. Believe in your heart forever how very much I loved you.
The Annie of Dean's dreams had long blonde hair but kept her head turned from him as she wrote in her journal. He kept wanting to see her face but was unable to do so. She closed the journal and began her preparation. Stopping her seemed not to enter Dean's mind as she placed a chair in the middle of the room, looking up to make sure it was directly beneath the hanging brass fixture. Then, with her back still turned toward him, she unfastened the drape cord and began tying the knot. When she completed her task, she stepped up on the velvet chair, after modestly lifting her skirt ever so slightly.
Dean woke with a start in the darkened room, as wide-awake as mid-day of a grade school vacation. His body was damp with perspiration and his breath labored. Rubbing his eyes, he peered at the blurred figures of his clock, (more evidence of the necessity for his glasses). The time was just after two. Fully alert, he listened, but heard only night noises, the ticking of the hall clock, a slight breeze, the ever-present furnace rumbling heat to the old building. The dream was drifting away from conscious memory, into that pit of forgotten remembrances that somewhere dwells in our deepest subconscious. While he'd failed to save Annie from her moribund actions, he now labored to retain the phantom vision of her final memory.
He lay back and closed his eyes, trying to picture the sad death, the end of the sad life of a woman, now resurrected to importance after a hundred years of total obscurity. Perhaps, he thought, we are all owed contemplation of our actions, as a parting gift to those who succeed us so they might somehow learn from our deeds and mistakes. But what a price to pay! What price love? he thought, to take one's own life for the simple expedient of protecting the other participant, a co-sinner, no less responsible for their sins together. And yet, if Cynthia should be in need of an ultimate expression of his love, how would he respond? He knew full well the answer.