Opening the safe to add this letter to the accumulating pile in the centre compartment, Osterhout was conscious of a subtle and troubling impression. He felt that some alien hand had intruded there, some alien eye had seen those words, so sacredly confidential, sealed in the inviolable silences of death. Yet that, he knew, was impossible. No one in the world except himself had the combination of the safe. Could Mona herself, Mona's spirit, returning to the room she had so loved and so permeated with her personality, have entered there to absorb the essence of the confidences which she had demanded of him? But if that were so, why should he feel that sense of invasion, since the letters belonged more to Mona than to him? Nevertheless, the thought was a blessed appeasement to the thirst of his heart. He clasped it to him. But presently his underlying materialistic hard sense reasserted its ascendancy. He set it all down to imagination; smiled tolerantly at himself for a sentimental self-deluder.
For a long time Pat did not come to pay him the expected visit. But the day before her return to school she appeared in his laboratory.
"Bobs," she announced pathetically, "I've got a sore throat."
"Let's have a look at it," he directed, leading her to the window.
She tilted back her face, while he explored the recesses of the accused organ.
"Sore throat, eh?" he remarked. "At least your mouth is clean, which is more than could have been said of it a year ago. You've got a breath like a cow."
"'Snice," purred Pat. "I'm a good little dieter. But what about my throat?"
"Well," answered the physician judicially, "it might be diphtheria or it might be scarlet fever, but I think it's that guilty feeling that comes of telling lies about itself. Your throat is no more sore than my pipe."
"I know it isn't," admitted the unabashed Pat. "But I'm kind of wrong inside. Way-way inside, I mean."