I want you so much, dear!

The schoolmaster added the last letter to the others and locked the
box. When he unlocked it again, two days later, the letters were gone.

He gazed at the empty box with dilated eyes. At first he could not
realize what had happened. The letters could not be gone! He must have
made a mistake, have put them in some other place! With trembling
fingers he ransacked his trunk. There was no trace of the letters.
With a groan he dropped his face in his hands and tried to think.

His letters were gone--those precious letters, held almost too sacred
for his own eyes to read after they were written--had been stolen from
him! The inmost secrets of his soul had been betrayed. Who had done
this hideous thing?

He rose and went downstairs. In the farmyard he found Link tormenting
his dog. Link was happy only when he was tormenting something. He
never had been afraid of anything in his life before, but now
absolute terror took possession of him at sight of the schoolmaster's
face. Physical strength and force had no power to frighten the sullen
lad, but all the irresistible might of a fine soul roused to frenzy
looked out in the young man's blazing eyes, dilated nostrils, and
tense white mouth. It cowed the boy, because it was something he could
not understand. He only realized that he was in the presence of a
force that was not to be trifled with.

"Link, where are my letters?" said the schoolmaster.

"I didn't take 'em, Master!" cried Link, crumpling up visibly in his
sheer terror. "I didn't. I never teched 'em! It was Sis. I told her
not to--I told her you'd be awful mad, but she wouldn't tend to me. It
was Sis took 'em. Ask her, if you don't believe me."

The schoolmaster believed him. Nothing was too horrible to believe
just then. "What has she done with them?" he said hoarsely.

"She--she sent 'em to Una Clifford," whimpered Link. "I told her not
to. She's mad at you, cause you went to see Una and wouldn't go with
her. She thought Una would be mad at you for writing 'em, cause the
Cliffords are so proud and think themselves above everybody else. So
she sent 'em. I--I told her not to."

The schoolmaster said not another word. He turned his back on the
whining boy and went to his room. He felt sick with shame. The
indecency of the whole thing revolted him. It was as if his naked
heart had been torn from his breast and held up to the jeers of a
vulgar world by the merciless hand of a scorned and