write; my hands shake so that they are not under control, and I am
trembling all over with memory of the horrors we saw enacted before
our eyes. I am grieved beyond measure that I should be, however
remotely, a cause of this horror coming on you. Forgive me if you
can, and do not think too hardly of me. This I ask with confidence,
for since we shared together the danger--the very pangs--of death, I
feel that we should be to one another something more than mere
friends, that I may lean on you and trust you, assured that your
sympathy and pity are for me. You really must let me thank you for
the friendliness, the help, the confidence, the real aid at a time of
deadly danger and deadly fear which you showed me. That awful man--I
shall see him for ever in my dreams. His black, malignant face will
shut out all memory of sunshine and happiness. I shall eternally see
his evil eyes as he threw himself into that well-hole in a vain effort
to escape from the consequences of his own misdoing. The more I think
of it, the more apparent it seems to me that he had premeditated the
whole thing--of course, except his own horrible death.

"Perhaps you have noticed a fur collar I occasionally wear. It is one
of my most valued treasures--an ermine collar studded with emeralds. I
had often seen the nigger's eyes gleam covetously when he looked at
it. Unhappily, I wore it yesterday. That may have been the cause
that lured the poor man to his doom. On the very brink of the abyss
he tore the collar from my neck--that was the last I saw of him. When
he sank into the hole, I was rushing to the iron door, which I pulled
behind me. When I heard that soul-sickening yell, which marked his
disappearance in the chasm, I was more glad than I can say that my
eyes were spared the pain and horror which my ears had to endure.

"When I tore myself out of the negro's grasp as he sank into the well-