Coming back to his room he saw something lying on the floor by his bed; it was a letter; he struck a match, lit the candle and picked the letter up. It was just a folded piece of paper, it had been sealed, but the seal was broken, and sitting down on the side of the bed he spread it open, but his hands were shaking so that he had to rest it on his knee.
It was not from Phyl. That letter had been written many, many years ago, the ink was faded and the handwriting of another day.
He read it.
“Not to-night. I have to go to the Calhouns. It is just as well for I have a dread of people suspecting if we meet too often....
“Sometimes I feel as if I were deceiving him and everybody. I am, and I don’t care. Oh, my darling! my darling! my darling! If the whole world were against you I would love you all the more. I will love you all my life, and I will love you when I am dead.”
It was the letter of Juliet to her lover.
He turned it over and looked at the seal with the little dove upon it. He knew of Juliet’s letters, and he knew at once that this was one of them, and he guessed vaguely that she had been reading it when sleep overtook her and that it had formed part of the inspiration that led her to him. But the whole truth he would never know.
A blazing red Cardinal was singing in the magnolia tree by the gate, butterflies were chasing one another above the flowers; it was seven o’clock and the blue, lazy, lovely morning was unfolding like a flower to the sea wind.
Richard Pinckney was standing in the piazza before his bedroom window looking down into the garden.