"I'd love to see her," agreed Grace, "but——" She hesitated. "I shouldn't care to go away from home now. After Jean goes north we are likely to hear news almost any day. You see, I have pinned my faith on his ability to accomplish miracles."
"Well, we can wait a week or so and see," declared Elfreda. "If things stay just the same and we hear nothing of interest from him, we can leave Overton on Saturday, spend Sunday with Emma and come back to Oakdale on Monday."
"I think it would do you good to see Emma, Grace," approved Mrs. Gray with a touch of her old decision. "We can do nothing but hope, pray and wait. Your trip to New York to see Miriam married was on the whole depressing. Emma will put new life into you. She's such a comical, delightful girl. Now that our case is at last in competent hands, we must make a special effort to be cheerful. I've failed sadly this summer in practicing what I am preaching. Now I intend to try to make up for it. But if I am to make good my promise to Elfreda to feed her on waffles, I must tell Margaret to make them."
Left to themselves, the two girls conversed softly together regarding the change the advent of old Jean had wrought in their hostess. When an hour later the trio gathered in the morning room, unanimously chosen as a supper room by reason of its cosiness, the sense of oppression which had formerly held them captive had been marvelously lightened by hope. Later the three spent a quiet evening together in the library, and it was eleven o'clock when Grace and Elfreda turned their steps homeward.
To her father and mother, who had reached home ahead of her, Grace recounted the details of Jean's visit. They received the glad tidings with a joy second only to her own.
Another hour slipped swiftly by before the household retired, and it was half-past twelve o'clock before Grace bade Elfreda good-night and softly closed the door of her room. Alone with her own thoughts, she curled up on a cushioned window seat and gazed meditatively out upon the still autumn night. Through the open window a soft wind caressingly touched her rapt face. It sighed through the trees, sending an occasional leaf to earth with a faint protesting rustle. Overhead the stars twinkled serenely down upon her, as though in tantalizing possession of the answer to the question that lay behind her musing eyes.
In close communion with the night, Grace lived over again those first rare days of her Golden Summer. The present swept aside, the past confronted her in sharpest outline. Her mind dwelt on the evening when the Eight Originals had strolled to the old Omnibus House and Nora had sung the song of Golden Summer. She could almost hear Tom say, "I'd like our lives, from this moment on, always to be one long, continued Golden Summer." She wondered if the very utterance of the wish had broken the spell. Then came the remembrance of those dear hours of preparation at Haven Home. Again she could fancy herself coming down the stairs in her wedding gown and pausing to listen as Nora sang "La Lettre."
Here her musings broke off abruptly. With the memory of "The Letter," a sudden tender resolve took possession of her. To-morrow Jean would start on his search. Very well, he should not go empty-handed. She would write a letter to Tom. When Jean found him, her letter should bridge the gap of distance between them.
Rising from the window seat she sought her desk. Seated before it, she took up her pen and laid a sheet of paper in place. Once she had begun to write it was as though an unseen power guided her to inspiration. She wondered if somewhere under the stars Tom Gray was seeking, at the same time, to send her a message. Never before had she been so thoroughly imbued with the mystical impression of his nearness to her. It was not a long letter, yet somehow she had managed exactly to convey the meaning she had intended. As she was finishing it, she heard the distant chime of the grandfather's clock downstairs, striking the half hour, and she smiled tenderly as the words of Nora's song returned to her. "I wonder: 'Is it I who write to thee, or thou to me?'"