she was willing to admit. There was nothing for me to do but to obey
meekly, but my blood was up, and instead of moping in my room I started
out to see if I could find Constant-Scrappe. My love for Henriette was
too deep to permit of my sitting quietly by and seeing another walk away
with the one truly coveted prize of my life, and I was ready on sight to
take the colonel by the collar--he was only a governor's-staff colonel
anyhow, and, consequently no great shakes as a fighter--and throw him
into the harbor, but my quest was a vain one. He was to be found in none
of his familiar haunts, and I returned to Bolivar Lodge. And then came
the shock. As I approached the house I saw the colonel assisting
Henriette into the motor-car, and in response to the chauffeur's "Where
to, sir," I heard Scrappe reply in an excited undertone:
"To New York--and damn the speed laws."
In a moment they had rushed by me like the flash of a lightning express,
and Henriette was gone!
You must know the rest. The papers the next day were full of the
elopement in high life. They told how the Scrappe divorce had been
granted at five o'clock in the afternoon the day before, how Colonel
Scrappe and Mrs. Van Raffles had sped to New York in the automobile and
been quietly married at the Little Church Around the Corner, and were
now sailing down the bay on the _Hydrostatic_, bound for foreign climes.
They likewise intimated that a very attractive lady of more than usual
effusiveness of manner, whose nuptials were expected soon to be
published for the second time, had gone to a sanitarium in Philadelphia
to be treated for a sudden and overwhelming attack of nervous hysteria.
It was all too true, that tale. Henriette's final coup had been
successful, and she had at one stroke stolen her landlord, her
landlady's husband, and her neighbor's fiance. To console me she left
this note, written on board of the steamer and mailed by the pilot.
ON BOARD THE HYDROSTATIC.
OFF SANDY HOOK, _September 10, 1904_.
DEAR BUNNY,--I couldn't help it. The minute I saw him I felt that
I must have him. It's the most successful haul yet and is the
last adventure I shall ever have. He's worth forty million
dollars. I'm sorry for you, dear, but it's all in the line of
business. To console you I have left in your name all that we have
won together in our partnership at Newport--fourteen millions five
hundred and sixty-three thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven
dollars in cash, and about three million dollars in jewels, which
you must negotiate carefully. Good-bye, dear Bunny, I shall never
forget you, and I wish you all the happiness in the world. With
the funds now in your possession why not retire--go home to
England and renew your studies for the ministry? The Church is a
noble profession.
Sincerely yours,
HENRIETTE VAN RAFFLES-SCRAPPE.
I have gathered together these meagre possessions--rich in bullion
value, but meagre in happiness, considering all that might have been,
and to-morrow I sail for London. There, following Henriette's advice, I
shall enter the study of the ministry, and when I am ordained shall buy
a living somewhere and settle down to the serene existence of the
preacher, the pastor of a flock of human sheep.
[Illustration: "MY MISERY IS DEEP BUT I AM BUOYED UP BY ONE GREAT HOPE"]
My misery is deep but I am buoyed up by one great hope in every thought.
These Newport marriages are so seldom for life that I yet have hope that
some day Henriette will be restored to me without its necessarily
involving any serious accident to her husband the colonel.