The day following the receipt of this letter brought a telegraphic notification from David Nesbit to the effect that he had reached the lumber camp and was about to start on his search for his chum. With this small consolation, the patient, tortured souls who awaited news of their lost one were forced to be content.
Hard as it had been to write to her trusty comrades, it was infinitely harder for Grace to receive the messages of sympathy and love which poured in upon her. Yet on the heels of her distress came one letter which, despite the gravity of her present situation, moved Grace to half-hearted laughter. On opening an envelope addressed to herself in Arline Thayer's unmistakable script, Grace was mildly astonished to read:
"Dear Stanley:
"After our talk last evening I am quite certain that I could never be happy as your wife. It has shown me clearly that our aims and viewpoints are so entirely different that it would be useless even to dream of spending the remainder of our lives together. It is hard to write this, but I feel that no matter what it may cost me I must be true to myself. I am therefore returning your ring and letters by express. You may do as you think best in regard to returning the letters I have written you.
"With a sincere wish for your future happiness,
"Yours sincerely,
"Arline Thayer."
Tardily realizing that she had unwittingly perused a communication not intended for her eyes, Grace lost no time in writing an apologetic letter to Arline in which she enclosed the fateful missive of rejection. How Arline had come to mail it to her was a matter for speculation.
But she had only set eyes on the beginning of a drama as she was soon destined to learn. Late the next afternoon, while seated on the front veranda with her mother, she viewed with mingled emotions a taxicab which had come to a full stop before the house. Out of it stepped a small, golden-haired young woman whose smart pongee traveling coat and bulging leather bag proclaimed that she had come from afar.
"Arline Thayer!" cried Grace, running down the steps to meet the newcomer as she passed through the gateway. "Why, Daffydowndilly! This is a surprise! You are the last person I had dreamed of seeing." Grace caught the dainty little girl in a warm embrace.