In due time Griswold's letter came. I went into my office to read it. I
told myself that I had no fears for the good name of Florence Campbell.
I knew that some explanation would be made that would confirm me in my
opinion of her; but, for all that, I locked the door, and my hand was
less steady than I liked to see it, as I tore the end of the envelope.
I even remember thinking vaguely that I usually took time to open my
letters with more precision and with less disregard for the untidy
appearance of their outer covering afterward. I hesitated to read beyond
the first line, although I had so hastened to get that far. I read: "My
dear old friend," and then turned the letter over to see how long it
was--how much probable information it contained. There were four closely
written pages. I wondered if it could all be about Florence Campbell,
and was vaguely afraid that it was--and that it was _not_. I remembered
looking at the clock when I came into the office. It was nearly six
o'clock. I laid the letter down and went to the cooler and got out
a bottle of Vichy. I sat it and (placed) some wine by my elbow on the
desk, and took up the letter.
"I never heard of anyone by the name of Florence Campbell, so far as I
can recall. I certainly never had a patient by that name. Some months
ago I gave the letter you enclose--which I certainly did write--to a
patient of mine who was on her way to Europe and expected to stay some
time in New York on her way through.
"She, however, was in no way like the lady you describe. Her name was
Kittie Hatfield, and she was small, with dreamy blue eyes and flaxen
hair--a _perfect_ woman, in fact." Oh! Tom! Tom! thought I--true to your
record, to the last! I had long since ceased to wonder at the lapse,
however, for Florence Campbell herself was surely sufficient explanation
of all that. "I understood"--the letter went on--"that Kittie did not
stop but a few days in New York, when she was joined by the party with
which she was to travel. She stayed at the F------ Avenue Hotel, I have
learned, and became intimate with some queer people there--much to the
indignation of her brother, when he learned of it."
I laid the letter down and put my head on my arms, folded as they were
on the desk. I was dizzy and tired. When I raised my head it was dark.
I got up, lighted the gas, and found myself stiff and as if I had been
long in a forced and unnatural position. I recalled that I had been
indignant.
This brother of the silly-pated, blue-eyed girl had not liked her
to know Florence Campbell, indeed! He was, no doubt, a precious
fool--naturally would be, with such a sister, I commented mentally.
What else, I wondered, had Griswold found out? Was the rest of this old
fool's letter about her? I began where I had left off.
"I have since learned from him that the man--whose name _was_
Campbell--was a foreigner of some kind, with a decidedly vague, not
to say, hazy reputation, and that his wife, who was supposed to be an
invalid, and an American of good family, never appeared in public, and
so was never seen by him--that is by Will Hatfield--but was only known
to him through Kittie's enraptured eyes. She was said to be bright and
pretty. Kittie is the most generous child alive in her estimate of other
women; however, he thinks it possible that Kittie either gave her the
letter from me to you, and asked her to have proper medical care, or
else that the woman, or her husband, got hold of it in a less legitimate
way; which I think quite likely. Kittie thought the Campbell woman was
charming." The "Campbell woman," indeed! I felt like a thief, even
to read such rubbish, and I should have enjoyed throttling the whole
ill-natured gossipping set--not omitting flaxen-haired Kittie herself.