which Harber held for a moment that seemed like an eternity
and then let go. She went into the house, but Harber didn't follow
her. He went off to his so-called hotel.

In his room, by the light of the kerosene-lamp, he took out the
envelope and reed what she had written. It was:

Vanessa Simola, Claridon, Michigan.

He turned over the envelope and looked at the address on the other
side, in his own handwriting:

Miss Janet Spencer, Tawnleytown....

And the envelope dropped from his nerveless fingers to the table.

Who shall say how love goes or comes? Its ways are a sacred,
insoluble mystery, no less. But it had gone for Harber: and just as
surely, though so suddenly, had it come! Yes, life had bitterly
tricked him at last. She had sent him this girl ... too late! The
letter in the envelope was written to tell Janet Spencer that within
six weeks he would be in Tawnleytown to claim her in marriage.

One must be single-minded like Harber to appreciate his terrible
distress of mind. The facile infidelity of your ordinary mortal
wasn't for Harber. No, he had sterner stuff in him.

Vanessa! The name seemed so beautiful ... like the girl herself,
like the things she had said. It was an Italian name. She had told
him her people had come from Venice, though she was herself
thoroughly a product of America. "So that you can never forget," she
had said. Ah, it was the warm blood of Italy in her veins that had
prompted that An American girl wouldn't have said that!

He slit the envelope, letting the letter fall to the table, and put
it in his pocket.

Yet why should he save it? He could never see her again, he knew.
Vain had been those half-promises, those wholly lies, that his eyes
and lips had given her. For there was Janet, with her prior promises.
Ten years Janet had waited for him ... ten years ... and suddenly,
aghast, he realized how long and how terrible the years are, how they
can efface memories and hopes and desires, and how cruelly they had
dealt with him, though he had not realized it until this moment.
Janet ... why, actually, Janet was a stranger, he didn't know Janet
any more! She was nothing but a frail phantom of recollection: the
years had erased her! But this girl--warm, alluring, immediate....

No--no! It couldn't be.

So much will the force of an idea do for a man, you see. Because, of
course, it could have been. He had only to destroy the letter that
lay there before him, to wait on until the