Instead, however, she paused to lift out a neat little package containing a score or more of other epistles, tied together with a white ribbon. For a moment she hesitated, as though she were both mentally and physically weighing the objects held in either hand. A shadow of strange uncertainty came into her eyes, the outward expression of an inward uncertainty foreign to her nature. Slowly, she turned from her reflection in the mirror and dropped down on the edge of the daintily counterpaned bed. With hesitating fingers she untied the ribbon from the package and began to glance through the unbound letters, pausing at intervals to read stray paragraphs from them. Each one began and ended almost the same—"Dear little Smiles" and "Affectionately your friend, Donald."
There was the one which contained the allegory of the steep path—which now lay behind her; the one in which he told her of little Donald's advent into the world and of his own betrothal to Marion Treville, and as she read that sentence which held so much of import in the lives of both of them, she sighed, "Poor Don. He hasn't mentioned her; but her faithlessness must have struck deep, for he is, oh, so changed and more reserved." There were other letters filled with the spirit of camaraderie, and then the later ones, strong, simple, with their stories of others' sacrifice in the great cause of humanity.
When the last one was read and laid upon the others, she sat with them in her lap for a moment, musing. The suspicion of tears shone in her eyes as she finally shook her head, and, evening them carefully, retied them.
"No," she whispered, half aloud, "I mustn't be foolish. He's just my brother, that is the way he cares for me. It has always been like that. And I ... I mustn't be foolish."
Almost angrily she brushed away the single tear which had started its uncertain course down her cheek.
With a gesture of resolution, she stood up and placed the package in its box. The other letter was about to follow; but, as she started to lay it down, she changed her mind, and, with the flush again mounting her cheeks, took it from the envelope, which bore a special delivery stamp, postmarked in Boston that very morning.
Opening it, she read:
"My dearest Smiles:
Will you be the bearer of a message from me to your kind hostess? As you know, she has invited me down to Manchester-by-the-Sea for the week-end, as a surprise for Donald, and I have heretofore been unable to give a definite answer. Now I have banished everything else from my mind and shall arrive about seven-thirty.
You wonder, perhaps, why I haven't written this direct to her? In answering my own question I have a confession—yes, two confessions to make. A poor excuse is better than none, and I have sent the message to Ethel, through you, merely as an excuse for writing you.