Saturday morning dawned, clear and radiant. The glad light of early summer streamed in upon Grace. For a brief space she forgot her sorrows as she knelt at the open window and drank in the pure morning air. Then one by one they came back. She wondered whether the same sun were shining on Tom, far away in the jungle, and if he were well, and sometimes thought of her. How happy she might have made him and herself if only she had not been so blind. Through the bitterness of being found wanting she had come to realize what a wonderful thing it was to be truly loved. Never had the love of her parents and friends for her seemed so sacred. And how beautiful, how steadfast, Tom’s affection for her had been! With a sigh she turned her thoughts away from that lost happiness. Now came the old torturing question, “Would the summons come to-day?”
She was still brooding over it when she went downstairs to breakfast. Stopping in her office, she hastily went over her mail. It was with a sense of desperate relief that she separated an envelope, bearing the letter head of Overton College from the little pile of letters on the slide of her desk, and opened it. It was from President Morton, and merely stated that he wished her to call at his office at eleven o’clock that morning.
With the letter in her hand, Grace entered the dining-room. She intended to show it to Emma, but the latter, who had risen early on account of some special work she wished to do, had eaten a hasty breakfast and departed. Grace slipped the letter into her blouse and made a pretense of eating breakfast. But she had lost all appetite for food. After sipping part of a cup of coffee she rose from the table and, returning to her office, opened the rest of her mail.
Under any circumstances but those of the present her letters would have delighted her. There was one from Eleanor Savelli, written from her father’s villa in Italy, a long lively one from Nora, containing a breezy account of Oakdale doings, and a still longer letter from Anne. There was one from Julia Crosby, and an extremely funny note from J. Elfreda Briggs, describing a visit she had recently made to the night court.
One by one she read them, then laid them aside with an indifference born of suffering. If only there had been one for her in Tom’s clear, bold handwriting. But it was useless to linger, even for a moment, over what might have been. Grace gathered up her letters and, locking them in her desk, went upstairs, with slow, dragging steps, to dress for her call upon President Morton.
It was three minutes to eleven when a slim, erect figure walked up the steps of Overton Hall. Grace wore a smartly tailored suit of white serge, white buckskin shoes, white kid gloves and a white hemp hat trimmed with curved white quills. The lining of the hat bore the name of a famous maker. She had taken a kind of melancholy pride in her toilet that morning, and the result was all that she could have wished. Unconsciously the immaculate purity of her costume bespoke the pure, high, steadfast soul which looked out from her gray eyes. As she paused at the door for a moment, her hand on the knob, she experienced something of the thrill of a martyr, about to die for a sacred cause. Then she opened the door.
For an instant she stood as though transfixed. Was she dreaming, or could she actually believe her own eyes? A sudden faintness seized her. Everything turned dark. She swayed slightly, then with a little sobbing cry of, “Fairy Godmother! Miss Wilder!” she ran straight into Mrs. Gray’s outstretched arms.
That throbbing, wistful cry brought the tears to Miss Wilder’s eyes, while President Morton took off his glasses and wiped them with his handkerchief. Great tears were rolling down Mrs. Gray’s cheeks which she made no effort to hide. “My little girl,” she said brokenly. “How dared that dreadful woman treat you so shabbily?”
It was at least ten minutes before the three women could settle down to the exchanging of questions and explanations. President Morton, the soul of old-fashioned courtesy, beamed his approval on them.
“Now my dear,” said Miss Wilder at last, “I wish you to begin at the very beginning of this affair, and tell us just what has happened.”