He opened the envelope, warmly grateful for her mere existence.

"DEAR FRIEND:--

As you will probably not find time before you leave the city to bid me
farewell in person. I beg you to return to me a certain key which I
gave into your keeping some years ago. You have no need of it and it
worries me to have it lying about.

Don't think that I am at all angry. My friendship and my gratitude are
yours, however far and long we may be separated. When, some day, we
meet again, we will both have become different beings. With many
blessings upon your way,

ALICE."

He struck his forehead like a man who awakens from an obscene dream.

Where was his mind? He was about to go in search of that which was so
close at hand, so richly his own!

Where else in all the world could he find a woman so exquisitely
tempered to his needs, so intimately responsive to his desires, one
who would lead him into the darker land of matrimony through meadows
of laughing flowers?

To be sure, there was her coolness of temper, her learning, her
strange restlessness. But was not all that undergoing a change? Had he
not found her sunk in dreams? And her tears? And her kiss?