"Of course, but he won't! I can't imagine what it is; he seems to be fond of that date."
"It's my birthday!" she said, gazing at the rug, longing to take him into her confidence.
"Then you'd better get the roses back in your cheeks!" said the doctor briskly. "What do you think of these snapshots? Garry's more beautiful than I am, but I landed the first moose. Take 'em along!"
He put in her hand a dozen photographs, accompanying her to the door with the cordial respect he had shown her ever since that afternoon when she had indignantly disclaimed the engagement. There he took her hand in a fatherly way:
"Miss Baxter, you've one life to your credit, bless you! I didn't think it possible! You've got a better medicine than I have!"
When she went home, she sat a long while, staring at the curious figures in snow-shoes and sweaters; but she did not open the letter. She knew that he would return for the tenth, and yet the news upset her terribly. If she shrank from the necessity of telling Nebbins the truth, this was nothing to the dread she had of Lindaberry's being present. She had hoped, almost against hope, that he would stay away for months; that, as he regained his self-control, the feeling he had for her would quiet down into a sense of profound gratitude only, which would leave him not too long miserable at her flight.
She took up the envelope again, hesitated, ran her fingers along the edge, and glanced at the first page. Almost at once she rose, with a catching of the throat, thrust the letter back into the envelope and locked it in her trunk. Then she went hurriedly, blindly, to seek Massingale in court, a thing she seldom did. All that evening she was very quiet, very clinging with him, studying him with wide serious eyes.
One day at the end of the first week in March, the boarding-house was thrown into a state of violent excitement: Winona Horning had returned, paid Miss Pim, tipped Josephus the enormous sum of five dollars, left an address near the park for her trunk, and departed, after an abrupt answer to Miss Pim's exclamatory questions, saying that she had received a small legacy. The truth was discovered an hour later by Josephus, who personally delivered the trunk at an impressive apartment in the West Eighties. Winona was there under the name of Mrs. Sampson, and the automobile at the door belonged to Mr. Gilday. The next morning a letter came by messenger which left no further doubt in Dodo's mind:
"Dear old Dodo:
"You'll know the truth by this time. Don't waste any sympathy over me! I don't care—the other was worse! I couldn't go back and starve! Don't blame Joe, either; it's all my doing! I suppose the girls will say terrible things about me. The Duchess told me Ida's married: I'm glad of it. Dodo, I wish I could see you some day, just to talk to, but I suppose that's impossible. Remember what I say—only I hope it won't ever happen!—if things ever go bad with you, and you're dead up against it, come to me! What you've been to me I never can forget! Perhaps now you can even forgive me about Mr. Peavey. I was desperate! Don't refuse the hundred dollars I send you in this. It'll hurt me terribly—and I owe you every cent of it, on my word of honor! Good-by, Dodo. You've got more chances than I had; only don't make mistakes! chances than I had; only don't make mistakes!
"Winona (Mrs. Edgar Sampson.)"