In a plush and gilt suite at the Delmonico's hotel on New York's lower Broadway, a young woman sits at a desk writing a letter. It begins "My darling Alfred, When you read this, I I'll have left New York, and with it all my dreams of happiness. I know you will call me a coward for running away, a choice I've made is a sorrowful one, and it has taken all the strength of my being to see it through. On the desk before me is the bouquet of roses you sent, and their perfume brings back a hundred memories..."