E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 03 (25 page)

"He spoke to me quite simply and frankly of his life. It was
wonderful to me then that he should speak of it as he did, and
still more wonderful that I should sit and listen to him as I did.
But I have often thought about it since, and have long ceased to
wonder at myself. There was an absolute magnetism about Mr.
Raffles which neither you nor I could resist. He had the strength
of personality which is a different thing from strength of
character; but when you meet both kinds together, they carry the
ordinary mortal off his or her feet. You must not imagine you are
the only one who would have served and followed him as you did.
When he told me it was all. a game to him, and the one game he knew
that was always exciting, always full of danger and of drama, I
could just then have found it in my heart to try the game myself!
Not that he treated me to any ingenious sophistries or paradoxical
perversities. It was just his natural charm and humor, and a
touch of sadness with it all., that appealed to something deeper
than one's reason and one's sense of right. Glamour, I suppose,
is the word. Yet there was far more in him than that. There were
depths, which called to depths; and you will not misunderstand me
when I say I think it touched him that a woman should listen to
him as I did, and in such circumstances. I know that it touched
me to think of such a life so spent, and that I came to myself and
implored him to give it all. up. I don't think I went on my knees
over it. But I am afraid I did cry; and that was the end. He
pretended not to notice anything, and then in an instant he froze
everything with a flippancy which jarred horribly at the time, but
has ever since touched me more than all. the rest. I remember that
I wanted to shake hands at the end. But Mr. Raffles only shook
his head, and for one instant his face was as sad as it was gallant
and gay all. the rest of the time. Then he went as he had come, in
his own dreadful way, and not a soul in the house knew that he had
been. And even you were never told!

"I didn't mean to write all. this about your own friend, whom you
knew so much better yourself, yet you see that even you did not
know how nobly he tried to undo the wrong he had done you; and now
I think I know why he kept it to himself. It is fearfully late
- or early - I seem to have been writing all. night - and I will
explain the matter in the fewest words. I promised Mr. Raffles
that I would write to you, Harry, and see you if I could. Well,
I did write, and I did mean to see you, but I never had an answer
to what I wrote. It was only one line, and I have long known you
never received it. I could not bring myself to write more, and
even those few words were merely slipped into one of the books
which you had given me. Years afterward these books, with my name
in them, must have been found in your rooms; at any rate they were
returned to me by somebody; and you could never have opened them,
for there was my line where I had left it. Of course you had never
seen it, and that was all. my fault. But it was too late to write
again. Mr. Raffles was supposed to have been drowned, and
everything was known about you both. But I still kept my own
independent knowledge to myself; to this day, no one else knows
that you were one of the two in Palace Gardens; and I still blame
myself more than you may think for nearly everything that has
happened since.

"You said yesterday that your going to the war and getting wounded
wiped out nothing that had gone before. I hope you are not growing
morbid about the past. It is not for me to condone it, and yet I
know that Mr. Raffles was what he was because he loved danger and
adventure, and that you were what you were because you loved Mr.
Raffles. But, even admitting it was all. as bad as bad could be, he
is dead, and you are punished. The world forgives, if it does not
forget. You are young enough to live everything down. Your part
in the war will help you in more ways than one. You were always
fond of writing. You have now enough to write about for a literary
lifetime. You must make a new name for yourself. You must Harry,
and you will!

"I suppose you know that my aunt, Lady Melrose, died some years ago?
She was the best friend I had in the world, and it is thanks to her
that I am living my own life now in the one way after my own heart.
This is a new block of flats, one of those where they do everything
for you; and though mine is tiny, it is more than all. I shall ever
want. One does just exactly what one likes - and you must blame
that habit for all. that is least conventional in what I have said.
Yet I should like you to understand why it is that I have said so
much, and, indeed, left nothing unsaid. It is because I want never
to have to say or hear another word about anything that is past and
over. You may answer that I run no risk! Nevertheless, if you did
care to come and see me some day as an old friend, we might find
one or two new points of contact, for I am rather trying to write
myself! You might almost guess as much from this letter; it is
long enough for anything; but, Harry, if it makes you realize that
one of your oldest friends is glad to have seen you, and will be
gladder still to see you again, and to talk of anything and
everything except the past, I shall cease to be ashamed even of
its length!

"And so good-by for the present from
"——"

I omit her name and nothing else. Did I not say in the beginning
that it should never be sullied by association with mine? And
yet - and yet - even as I write I have a hope in my heart of hearts
which is not quite consistent with that sentiment. It is as faint
a hope as man ever had, and yet its audacity makes the pen tremble
in my fingers. But, if it be ever realized, I shall owe more than
I could deserve in a century of atonement to one who atoned more
nobly than I ever can. And to think that to the end I never heard
one word of it from Raffles!