“I think it will be better when I don’t see you.

“I have been sitting here with my head in my hands, wondering if there is any way in which I can spare you the pain of reading this letter, but it’s no use, it’s impossible to go back and bluff about it.

“Collins spoke to me about the change in me; he said he thought it was that touch of the sun in September.  I wish to God it was!

“I will take the course with Atkins, and then let you know.  He wants to go to Benares for some reason or another, and perhaps I will go with him, or perhaps come home to you.  But I don’t think I will come back under a year.

“You hear of men all your life who do this, but I feel as if it was killing me, and you, too.  I wish there was some other way.

“I have written Harry at the Crocker; my account there is to be transferred to your name.  I don’t know exactly what it is, but the money from the San Mateo lots went in there, and so there is plenty.  For God’s sake spend it, don’t hesitate about getting anything you want.  Why shouldn’t you keep the house, until April anyway; some one would stay with you, and then you could go to San Rafael.

“I’m not going to try to tell you how I feel about all this, because you know.  It all seems to me a bad dream.  Every little while I try to make myself think that after a while it will all come right, but it seemed to me all dead and buried after that time on the steamer, and of course it wasn’t!

“Tell people what you please, I leave all that to you.

“Chadwick will sell the car, and send you the bill of sale and the money.  He knows what I want sent; he’ll do all that.

“I’ve written and rewritten this ten times; my head is splitting.  It seems strange to think it is you and me.

“God bless you always, and our little girl.

“Jim.”

Julia finished it with a little grinding sound, like a groan, heard herself make a dramatic exclamation, an “Ah!” of agonized unbelief.  She sat down, got up again to take a few irresolute steps toward her desk, and finally went to her bedside telephone, and took down the receiver.

There was a delay; Julia rapped an impatient slipper on the floor, and rattled the hook.

“Western Union, please,” she said, a moment later; “I want to send a telegram.”

An interval of silence followed.  Julia sat staring blankly at the wall.  Then she rattled the hook again.

“No matter about that number, Central; I’ve changed my mind,” she said.  She walked irresolutely into the middle of the room, stood there a moment frowning, and then turned, to go back and fling herself on her bed, staring up into the dark, the letter crackling as it dropped beside her.

After a while she began to say, “Oh, oh, oh!” quietly and quickly under her breath.  The cry grew too much for her, she twisted on her face to stifle it, and after a few moments it stopped.  Then she turned on her back again, and said something sharply to herself in a whisper once or twice, and after that the moaning “Oh, oh, oh!” began again.