"A change came over him. He hesitated no longer; he became forceful and determined.
"'Very well,' he cried, 'if you're not mine now you will be! Here's good-by to Milton Leffert!'
"He took some matches from his pocket and lit the end of the paper. When it was burning brightly he dropped it over the edge of the terrace and it floated out into the space beneath. We stood together and watched it as it fell, burning red in the moonlight....
"Then for some weeks we were happy. Adrian seemed particularly so; he had had his gloomy moods before that but now they passed away entirely. And if there was a cloud of suspicion that I had done wrong in my own mind I was so happy in seeing Adrian's joy that I paid no attention to it.
"Only one thing struck me as odd; he would not let me tell my stepmother. He gave a number of reasons for it; it would make his position with us uncomfortable; he could not be a tutor and a lover at the same time; he was writing to his relatives and wanted to wait till they knew; we must wait till we were absolutely sure of ourselves, and so forth. One of these reasons might have convinced me, but his giving so many of them made me suspect, even as I obeyed him, that none of them was the real one. I wondered what it could be. I found out, soon enough.
"We left Italy and worked slowly northward. Several weeks after the scene on the terrace we reached Paris. There we met a number of our American friends, some of whom had just arrived from home. One day my stepmother and I were sitting talking with one of these—Elizabeth Haldane it was—and in the course of the conversation she happened to say: 'Very sad, isn't it, about poor Milton Leffert?'
"'What is sad?' asked my stepmother.
"'Why, haven't you heard?' said Elizabeth. 'He died a short time before we left. Brain fever or something of the sort—from overwork, they said. He was planning to run for the State Legislature this fall.' I saw her glancing round; she couldn't keep her eyes off me. But I sat still as a stone....
"As soon as I could I took Adrian off alone.
"'Adrian,' I said, 'the time has come when you've got to tell me what was in that telegram.'