happened last night? Micky tingled to the tips of his fingers as he remembered the letter he had written and posted; he had expected to feel rotten about it in the light of day; it was an agreeable surprise to find that he did not feel anything of the kind.

When he went in to breakfast there was a pile of letters waiting for him; he looked them through carelessly––there was one from Marie Deland, which he opened with a vague feeling of nervousness.

Marie was a nice little girl; he really was quite fond of her, and yet ... surely the days of miracles had not yet passed away, seeing that in a few short hours his feeling for her had changed from something warmer to more brotherly affection.

It made him feel uncomfortable to read what she had written; it was really only quite an ordinary letter of regret that she had not seen him last night, but Micky imagined he could read more between the lines.

“... I quite hoped you would drop in, if only 31 for a few moments,” so she wrote. “It’s been so dull. I am writing this alone in the library.”

31

Micky knew that library well; he and she had spent a good deal of time there together talking sweet nothings; he wondered if he would have been an engaged man by this time if that relative of the Delands had not so conveniently died, and if Esther had not chosen his particular street in which to weep.

He screwed the letter up and tossed it into the fire; he would answer it some time, or call; there was no immediate hurry. When he had finished his breakfast he went to his locked desk and took out Ashton’s letter––somehow until he actually saw it again he could not quite believe that the events of last night had not all been a dream; but the letter was real enough, at all events with its callous beginning to “Dear Lallie.”

The morning seemed to drag; twice people rang him up on the ’phone and asked him to lunch, but Micky was not in the mood for lunch; he felt a suppressed sort of excitement, as if something of great import were about to happen.

Driver looked at him woodenly once or twice; his face was as expressionless as his voice, but his dull eyes saw everything, and behind them his keen brain wondered what had happened to make Micky so restless.

Towards one o’clock he ventured a gentle reminder.

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