My Dear Mr. Camran: I know no easy way to break the truth I am obliged to send. If you have any doubt of being able to bear a shock without medical attendance do not read what I have placed in the other envelope until you have summoned your physician. I fear it will not be pleasant reading, but you must have the truth. At least, I must keep my promise now of lying only to others and not to you.
With this warning, I subscribe myself, for the last time,
I was surprised at the calmness with which I saw all my hopes blown to the winds in a single paragraph. Curiosity was the most pronounced feeling in my mind at the moment. I took a long breath, steadied my nerves for an instant, and then opened the larger envelope. There were typewriter sheets, twelve in number, done, apparently, on a Remington machine. And this is what I read:
Prepare yourself to hear the worst about me, my dear friend, for your imagination could hardly make me out a greater scamp than I am. Know then, to begin with, your companion in the Caribbean was a well-known criminal, whose entire trip with you was planned for the purpose of fraud. If she failed to accomplish that end you must ascribe it to a weak yielding to sentimental considerations, of which she should--from a professional standpoint--be heartily ashamed.
If you have survived this statement, read on, and I will be more explicit. I am what is known to the police as a "confidence woman." My usual game is to beguile persons of the opposite sex into "falling in love" with me and then fleece them out of as large a sum as I can do with safety to myself. I may add, without egotism, that I have been fairly successful in this, my chosen field. If you care to get another copy of that book I stopped you from reading at St. Thomas, "Our Rival, the Rascal," you will find on one of its pages a fairly accurate portrait of your humble servant, though the name affixed is not by any means the one I thought it wise to give you.
One of my favorite methods of making the acquaintance of probable victims is through the advertising columns of newspapers. I have found no better medium for the purpose than the "Personals" in the New York Herald; it is generally to be supposed that a masculine individual who will use that column or reply to anything contained therein is good game for my purpose.