“He came and after he had chatted awhile he got up and said he would go out and order an ice sent up from the drug store around the corner. As he bent to pick up his hat, a letter fell unnoticed from his pocket. Perhaps I should not have done so, but I concealed it with my skirt until he left the room. It was from Gretta, I found, and I have it yet,” she said, as she crossed the room to the little inlaid writing desk, and took from it a plain white envelope bordered in black. “I am going to let you read it,” she said, handing it to me. “Dearest Ned:— “I am going to die, I am sure. I am grieving myself to death over you. The sun never shines brightly any more and my heart aches all the time now. I am disgraced, or soon will be. Oh, Ned, come and take your poor, little Gretta away. Tell Claire what you did and she is so good and sweet she will send you to me, I know. Please take me away and marry me and I will tell them all that we went to St. Joe and were married when I was there visiting in Chicago. Come, dear, or I shall surely die. I ordered this black bordered paper because I am sure mamma will have use for it soon; anyway I am in mourning for the loss of what even you, with all your tenderness, cannot give back to me. “Come, Ned, for baby’s sake. “Your heart broken GRETTA.” “When I had finished my head swam, and I felt but one mad desire, and that was to fly. I acted on the impulse and after pinning a note to the letter saying, ‘Ned, I knew some of this before, now I know all. I am going away where you will never see me or hear from me again. You _must_ do your duty no matter what the sacrifice. A lifetime of devotion cannot repay her for her loss. CLAIRE.’ “I put on my hat and left by the side entrance. I had not the remotest idea of where I was going or what I was going to do. I was numb with agony and wandered aimlessly on until I came to a car line, then the thought flashed across my mind to go to ‘Suicide Bridge,’ and thither I went. “It was yet early in the evening and many people were lingering in the park. I walked onto the bridge with perfect calmness, the calmness of despair (for what was there now to live for), and on to my fate. I walked to the center of the bridge, as nearly as I can remember, and looking carefully around and seeing no one, I climbed upon the railing and jumped. “God must have raised up that man at that particular moment from mere nothingness, for I was so sure I was the only one on the structure at the time. He caught my skirt and by an almost superhuman effort drew me back onto the bridge. He did not ask a question, but took me in his arms and carried me until he met a policeman, to whom he said, ‘My wife became dizzy and fainted. Please call a carriage.’