ht; there are few. And--this one might not be so clever as to
understand every mood of yours, but--Roberta, Roberta--he would love you
so much that you wouldn't mind if he didn't always understand. That
is--you wouldn't mind if, in return, you--But I dare not say it--I can
only hope--hope!

Unless you send me word to the contrary by ten o'clock, I will then ask
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen, and arrange to come for you at four this afternoon.
You are committed to nothing by agreeing to this arrangement. But I--am
committed to everything for as long as I live. RICHARD.

* * * * *

It was well that it was not yet six o'clock in the morning and that
Roberta had two long hours to herself before she need come forth from
her room. She needed them, every minute of them, to get herself in hand.

It was a good letter, no doubt of that. It was neither clever nor
eloquent, but it was better: it was manly and sincere. It showed
self-respect; it showed also humility, a proud humility which rejoiced
that it could feel its own unworthiness and know thereby that it would
strive to be more fit. And it showed--oh, unquestionably it showed!--the
depth of his feeling. Quite clearly he had restrained a pen that longed
to pour forth his heart, yet there were phrases in which his tenderness
had been more than he could hold back, and it was those phrases which
made the recipient hold her breath a little as she read them, wondering
how, if the written words were almost more than she could bear, she
could face the spoken ones.

And now she really wanted to run away! If she could have had a week, a
month, between the reading of this letter and the meeting of its writer,
it seemed to her that it would have been the happiest month of her life.
To take the letter with her into exile, to read it every day, but to
wait--wait--for the real crisis till she could quiet her racing
emotions. One sweet at a time--not an armful of them. But the man--true
to his nature--the man wanted the armful, and at once. And she had made
him wait all these months; she could not, knowing her own heart, put him
off longer now. The cool composure with which, last winter, she had
answered his first declaration that he loved her was all gone; the
months, of waiting had done more than show him whether his love was
real: they had shown her that she wanted it to be real.

The day was a hard one to get through. The hours lagged--yet they flew.
At eight