New York City, Tuesday.
Dear Miss Harmon: You will perhaps consider this letter an impertinence, and yet you may not—under the circumstances. When the other day I called at your house, at your father's request, Mr. Harmon asked me to go up-stairs to see you. It was impossible for me at that time to accept his kind invitation. You will understand why. Since then, however, a change for the better has taken place in my affairs. The outlook is no longer so hopeless. I am leaving America. I sail on Saturday.
I cannot go without saying good-by. I have read in the newspapers about your coming marriage to the Prince of Eurasia. I sincerely hope that this realization of your life's ambition will bring the happiness you expect.
No matter what the future may have in store for me, the recollection of those all too few weeks we spent alone in close association on Hope Island will never grow dim in my memory. I can never forget you or the dream of supreme happiness that I once thought within my grasp. The signal fire is now dead and cold on Mount Hope's lofty summit, but another flame as bright and fierce, which you yourself kindled, will continue to blaze in my heart while life endures. I know that you are forever lost to me, I know that another will call you wife, yet night and day I am haunted by the memory of that mad afternoon on the sun-kissed sands when, almost crazed with passion, I seized you in my arms to take you for my own. Then, all at once, came the rude awakening!
But all that is past and gone. I steel my heart to try and forget what I had won and lost again. I will leave you in peace to enjoy your new happiness. You will never see or hear from me after I leave New York. Yet I would like to see you just once more, to grasp your hand and wish you well. We were always friends, and for one brief moment we were almost lovers. May I call on Thursday afternoon?
Yours sincerely,
John Armitage.
Ensconced in the big bay window of the library, comfortably propped up with cushions, Grace sat gazing pensively over the tree tops of Central Park. In her hand was Armitage's letter, which she had read and reread a dozen times until she knew every word by heart. Close by, impatiently tossed against a chair, was a magnificent floral basket which Prince Sergius had sent that morning. Attached to the basket by a white ribbon was an envelope—unopened. The perfume from the flowers scented the entire room, but Grace seemed to be unconscious of their presence. She kept looking out of the window as if expecting each instant to see some one appear on the Avenue. Every now and then she consulted her watch.
"Ten minutes past three!" she murmured. "I wrote that I should expect him at three. Perhaps he never got my letter."
A look of worry came over her face, and she was straining her eyes in an effort to distinguish far-away figures on the avenues when the door opened and her French maid entered. Grace looked up.
"What is it, Louise?" she asked.