I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the hall _that night_, because I saw your hat as you started to walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I sent a telephone-message to the _Granville_ for him to call. He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night, he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man at the _Zoroaster_ had orders from me to show a gentleman inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment. My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall--to hear at once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap that _we_ had arranged--that you were somewhere in the apartment listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words--there is so much, and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat so helplessly against a wall. But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations. Villiers had a spy watching all our movements--and was thus informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter had talked to men--all the things that his spy had learned. He did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth. Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that if it is not you--some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic possibility of calling him to the _Zoroaster_ blinded my judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old neighbor--who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the world, but who meant to be square with you.