he gift of expression and more brains than
Exeter people had ever imagined she possessed. When Gilbert read that
letter a fortnight later he was surprised to find that Anna was so
clever. He had always, with a secret regret, thought her much inferior
to Alma in this respect, but that delightful letter, witty, wise,
fanciful, was the letter of a clever woman.

When a year had passed Alma was still writing to Gilbert the letters
signed "A. Williams." She had ceased to fear being found out, and she
took a strange pleasure in the correspondence for its own sake. At
first she had been quakingly afraid of discovery. When she smuggled
the letters addressed in Gilbert's handwriting to Miss Anna Williams
out of the letter packet and hid them from Anna's eyes, she felt as
guilty as if she were breaking all the laws of the land at once. To be
sure, she knew that she would have to confess to Anna some day, when
the latter repented and began to wish she had written to Gilbert, but
that was a very different thing from premature disclosure.

But Anna had as yet given no sign of such repentance, although Alma
looked for it anxiously. Anna was having the time of her life. She was
the acknowledged beauty of five settlements, and she went forward on
her career of conquest quite undisturbed by the jealousies and
heart-burnings she provoked on every side.

One moonlight night she went for a sleigh-drive with Charlie Moore of
East Exeter--and returned to tell Alma that they were married!

"I knew you would make a fuss, Alma, because you don't like Charlie,
so we just took matters into our own hands. It was so much more
romantic, too. I'd always said I'd never be married in any of your
dull, commonplace ways. You might as well forgive me and be nice right
off, Alma, because you'd have to do it anyway, in time. Well, you do
look surprised!"

* * * * *

Alma accepted the situation with an apathy that amazed Anna. The truth
was that Alma was stunned by a thought that had come to her even while
Anna was speaking.

"Gilbert will find out about the letters now, and despise me."

Nothing else, not even the fact that Anna had married shiftless
Charlie Moore, seemed worth while considering beside this. The fear
and shame of it haunted her like a nightmare; she shrank every morning
from the thought of all the mail that was coming that day, fearing
that there would be an angry, puzzled letter from Gilbert. He must