UNFINISHED LETTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 19

UNFINISHED LETTER.

I A TRAGIC MISSIVE. The story of an unfinished letter addressed to "My Darling One," a hired boat, a woman's fall Into the Thames, and her rescue, was unfolded at Cherteey Police Court. Surrey, when a fashionably dressed young woman, Margaret Winifred Elliot, was charged with attempted suicide. After being interviewed In a private room the woman was certified for removal to a mental institution. The woman hired a skiff early one evening, and as she had not returned by eleven o'clock, a man went out In search of her. I Later, when asked by the boatman if she I were not going ashore, the woman replied lin the affirmative, and suddenly turned the I head of her skiff up-stream. When Hearing the landing stage, after being pursued and escorted towards the boat-house by two men In a pnnt. the woman dropped the oars, stood up In the bont and toppled into the river. One of the boatmen, Frederick Nicholas, of Egh.im, on seeing the woman fall, dived into the river and rescued her in an unconscious condition. A constable said that when he reached a bungalow with the girl she turned to him and said: "It seems a great deal of fuss to make over an accident." Concluding his evidence, the officer added that be found in the woman's handbag a letter which read:— ' " My Darling One.—This is to say goodbye to you. I have failed in everything. Try if son can to forgive mc. You are my last thought and my only regret. Sweetheart, believe mc when I tell yon " Hinting deeply of tragedy the letter abruptly terminated at this point as if the writer could find no adequate terms in which to conclude.