_May 28, 1912._ DEAR BEN: What have you done, what have you done, what have you done! That green child turned loose in New York, not knowing a soul and not having a cent! Suppose anything happens to her--how shall I feel then! Of course, you meant well, but my dear fellow, wasn't it a terrible, an inhuman thing to do! Just imagine--but then you _can't_ imagine, _can't_ imagine, _can't_ imagine! BEVERLEY. BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS _May 29, 1912._ MY DEAR BEVERLEY: I am sorry that my bungling efforts in your behalf should have proved such a miscalculation. But as you forgive everybody sooner or later perhaps you will in time pardon even me. Your respectful erring servant, BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE. TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES _May 30, 1912._ POLLY BOLES: The sight of a letter from me will cause a violent disturbance of your routine existence. Our "friendship" worked itself to an open and honourable end about the time I went away last summer and showed itself to be honest hatred. Since my return in the autumn I have been absorbed in many delightful ways and you, doubtless, have been loyally imbedded in the end of the same frayed sofa, with your furniture arranged as for years past, and with the same breastpin on your constant heart. Whenever we have met, you have let me know that the formidable back of Polly Boles was henceforth to be turned on me. I write because I will not come to see you. My only motive is that you will forward my letter to Ben Doolittle, whom you have so prejudiced against me, that I cannot even write to him. My letter concerns Beverley. You do not know that since our engagement was broken last summer he has regularly visited me: we have enjoyed one another in ways that are not fetters. Your friendship for Beverley of course has lasted with the constancy of a wooden pulpit curved behind the head and shoulders of a minister. Ben Doolittle's affection for him is as splendid a thing as one ever sees in life. I write for the sake of us all. Have you been with Beverley of late? If so, have you noticed anything peculiar? Has Ben seen him? Has Ben spoken to you of a change? I shall describe as if to you both what occurred to-night during Beverley's visit: he has just gone. As soon as I entered the parlours I discovered that he was not wholly himself and instantly recollected that he had not for some time seemed perfectly natural. Repeatedly within the last few months it has become increasingly plain that something preyed upon his mind. When I entered the rooms this evening, although he made a quick, clever effort to throw it off, he was in this same mood of peculiar brooding.