.

"Why, yes," cried Stanton. "Let's read them all. Let's read them
together. Only, of course, we must read them in order."

Almost tenderly he picked them up and sorted them out according to
their dates. "Of course," he explained very earnestly, "of course I
wouldn't think of showing these letters to any one ordinarily; but
after all, these particular letters represent only a mere business
proposition, and certainly this particular situation must justify one
in making extraordinary exceptions."

One by one he perused the letters hastily and handed them over to
Cornelia for her more careful inspection. No single associate detail
of time or circumstance seemed to have eluded his astonishing memory.
Letter by letter, page by page he annotated: "That was the week you
didn't write at all," or "This was the stormy, agonizing, God-forsaken
night when I didn't care whether I lived or died," or "It was just
about that time, you know, that you snubbed me for being scared about
your swimming stunt."

Breathless in the midst of her reading Cornelia looked up and faced
him squarely. "How could any girl--write all that nonsense?" she
gasped.

It wasn't so much what Stanton answered, as the expression in his eyes
that really startled Cornelia.

"Nonsense?" he quoted deliberatingly. "But I like it," he said. "It's
exactly what I like."

"But I couldn't possibly have given you anything like--that,"
stammered Cornelia.

"No, I know you couldn't," said Stanton very gently.

For an instant Cornelia turned and stared a bit resentfully into his
face. Then suddenly the very gentleness of his smile ignited a little
answering smile on her lips.

"Oh, you mean," she asked with unmistakable relief; "oh, you mean that
really after all it wasn't your letter that jilted me, but my
temperament that jilted you?"

"Exactly," said Stanton.

Cornelia's whole somber face flamed suddenly into unmistakable
radiance.

"Oh, that puts an entirely different light upon the matter," she
exclaimed. "Oh, now it doesn't hurt at all!"

Rustling to her feet, she began to smooth the scowly-looking wrinkles
out of her skirt with long even strokes of her bright-jeweled hands.

"I think I'm really beginning to understand," she said pleasantly.
"And truly, absurd as it sounds to say it, I honestly believe that I
care more for you this moment than I ever cared before, but--"
glancing with acute dismay at the cluttered suitcase on the floor,
"but I wou