I
am,

Respectfully yours,
SARAH K. WINTHROP.

She addressed this to the Harvard Club, and posted it that night on
her way home. It freed her of a certain responsibility, and so helped
her to enjoy a very good dinner.

CHAPTER XIV

IN REPLY

Don did not receive Miss Winthrop's letter until the following
evening. He had dropped into the club to join Wadsworth in a
bracer,--a habit he had drifted into this last month,--and opened the
envelope with indifferent interest, expecting a tailor's announcement.
He caught his breath at the first line, and then read the letter
through some five times. Wadsworth, who was waiting politely, grew
impatient.

"If you're trying to learn that by heart--" he began.

Don thrust the letter into his pocket.

"I beg your pardon," he apologized. "It--it was rather important."

They sat down in the lounge.

"What's yours?" inquired Wadsworth, as in response to a bell a page
came up.

"A little French vichy," answered Don.

"Oh, have a real drink," Wadsworth urged.

"I think I'd better not to-night," answered Don.

Wadsworth ordered a cock-tail for himself.

"How's the market to-day?" he inquired. He always inquired how the
market was of his business friends--as one inquires as to the health
of an elderly person.

"I don't know," answered Don.

"You don't mean to say you've cut out business?" exclaimed Wadsworth.

"I guess I have," Don answered vaguely.

"Think of retiring?"

"To tell the truth, I hadn't thought of it until very lately; but
now--"

Don restrained a desire to read his letter through once more.

"Take my advice and do it," nodded Wadsworth. "Nothing in it but a
beastly grind. It's pulling on you."

As a matter of fact, Don had lost some five pounds in the last month,
and it showed in his face. But it was not business which had done
that, and he knew it. Also Miss Winthrop knew it.

It was certainly white of her to take the trouble to write to him like
this. He wondered why she did. She had not been very much in his
thoughts of late, and he took it for granted that to the same degree
he had been absent from hers. And here she had been keeping count of
every time he came in late. Curious that she should have done that!

In the library, he took out the letter and read it through again.
Heavens, he could not allow himself to be discharged like an
unfai