Chapter 18

‘If ever you read this letter it will be because I shall have committed a crime the magnitude of which I realize fully. If, however, it does come to this, I ask you to believe that it was because I preferred to go to my death with my health and sanity than to weary out a tortured existence in which I should be a burden to you all, and a wretchedness to myself. ‘I have known for a long time that I was a victim of a malignant and incurable disease, and my increasing fear has been that it w…