Your Sana.
To this letter was pinned a short note to the effect that, because of incorrect address on the first envelope, the letter had been returned to her after some seven weeks had passed, and that she had promptly readdressed it correctly and with the second sending had also dispatched a cablegram.
Grace said to herself, “Poor thing, writing a wrong address on a letter to her lover. However, it finally found its destination. Here it is! And the cablegram!”
As Grace read this loving message, her face grew livid and her eyes expanded and contracted in her rage. She rose up suddenly, exclaiming through quivering lips, “Why couldn’t she have died, or that caveman taken her. Then I should not have to suffer now. Then she would have been out of my way.”
For an hour she sat in the chair, where she had thrown herself in a fit of rage, torturing herself with cruel thoughts. But finally the madness died down, and the look of hatred was replaced by one of utmost depression and despair.
“What is the use? Sooner or later he will learn that his desert flame is still burning.”
At this juncture, Grace rose and replaced the message within the envelope, sealing it carefully once more. Yes, it would be for the best if she turned it over to its rightful owner. With that thought in mind she sought the comfort of her pillows.
The next morning, however, the good resolution of the night before had paled. Grace seized upon the letter and striking a match soon reduced Sana’s message to a little heap of black fragments, saying with a bitter laugh “Here goes Carl’s flame like the will-of-the-whisp, flitting over the ground in its misleading way, lasting but a little while.”
But Grace could not alter the ways of Fate or Destiny! She might stave them off for the while, but all her plans and wiles could not prevent them from eventually rushing past her and on to the predestined goal.
The days rolled by and still Grace bore her grudge against Carl. In what strange actions love chooses to express itself! And yet—did not the great Alexander burn Persepolis, the Gem of the East, in order to satisfy the whim of Thaïs, the courtesan? Did not Antony lose the world to follow in the footsteps of her who fled in vain back to her lost empire—Cleopatra? Yes, these are the ways of love and strange ways they are.