had some serious disease that would kill her.

But she did live; she became better, and then in a mood of passionate
tenderness she wrote her first little love-letter to Joe. She went
about, doing her school-work and bearing the weight of intolerable
lonely days, and he had written twice, just a word to her, a word of
delay. What kept him? What was he doing? She read of his testimony at
the inquest and became indignant because he blamed himself. Who was to
blame for such an accident? It was not his cigarette that had started
the blaze. In her overwrought condition she passed from a terrible love
to a sharp hate, and back and forth. Was he a fool or was he more noble
than she could fathom? He should have seen her sooner, he should not
have left her a prey to her morbid thoughts. Time and again she became
convinced that he had ceased to love her, that he was more concerned
over his burnt printery. She twisted his letters against him. She would
sit in her room trying to work at her school papers, and suddenly she
would clench her fists, turn pale, and stare despairingly at the blank
wall.

Day after day she waited, starting up every time she heard the postman's
whistle and the ringing of the bell. And then at last one night, as she
paced up and down the narrow white little room, she heard the landlady
climbing the stairs, advancing along the hall, and there was a sharp
rap. She felt faint and dizzy, flung open the door, took the letter, and
sank down on the bed, hardly daring to open it.

It was brief and cold:

Dear Myra,--I know you are up early, so I am
coming around at seven to-morrow morning--I'll be