you are out), some time
in the course of the next two hours I shall decline to be satisfied with
only once looking at your Diary; and I shall make an appointment with
him to bring it to me again at the same time to-morrow. Before then you
will receive these lines by the hand of my nurse. Go out as usual after
reading them; but return privately, and unlock the table-drawer in which
you keep your book. You will find it gone. Post yourself quietly in the
little study; and you will discover the Diary (when Miserrimus Dexter
leaves me) in the hands of your friend."*

*****

* Note by Mr. Playmore:

The greatest difficulties of reconstruction occurred in this first
portion of the torn letter. In the fourth paragraph from the beginning
we have been obliged to supply lost words in no less than three places.
In the ninth, tenth, and seventeenth paragraphs the same proceeding was,
in a greater or less degree, found to be necessary. In all these cases
the utmost pains have been taken to supply the deficiency in exact
accordance with what appeared to be the meaning of the writer, as
indicated in the existing pieces of the manuscript.

*****

"October 20.

"I have read your Diary.

"At last I know what you really think of me. I have read what Miserrimus
Dexter promised I should read--the confession of your loathing for me,
in your own handwriting.

"You will not receive what I wrote to you yesterday at the time or in
the manner which I had proposed. Long as my letter is, I have still
(after reading your Diary) some more words to add. After I have closed
and sealed the envelope, and addressed it to you, I shall put it under
my pillow. It will be found there when I am laid out for the grave--and
then, Eustace (when it is too late for hope or help), my letter will be
given to you.

"Yes: I have had enough of my life. Yes: I mean to die.

"I have already sacrificed everything but my life to my love for you.
Now I know that my love is not returned, the last sacrifice left is
easy. My death will set you free to marry Mrs. Beauly.

"You don't know what it cost me to control my hatred of her, and to beg
her to pay her visit here, without minding my illness. I could never
have done it if I had not been so fond of you, and so fearful of
irritating you against me by showing my jealousy. And how did you reward
me? Let your Diary answer: 'I tenderly embraced her this very morning;
and I hope, poor soul, she did not discover the ef