She called for the maid, Annie, whose husband was the janitor of the house, and who slept in the top story.

“If Henry hasn’t gone to bed,” said Laura, “tell him to wait up till I call him, or to sleep with his clothes on. There is something I want him to do for me⁠—something important.”

It was close upon midnight. Laura turned back into her room, removed her hat and veil, and tossed them, with her coat, upon the bed. She lit another burner of the chandelier, and drew a chair to her writing-desk between the windows.

Her first note was to Landry Court. She wrote it almost with a single spurt of the pen, and dated it carefully, so that he might know it had been written immediately after he had left. Thus it ran: