And I have read it.

Poor little Mary Marie!  Dear little Mary Marie!  To meet you like this, to share with you your joys and sorrows, hopes and despairs, of those years long ago, is like sitting hand in hand on a sofa with a childhood’s friend, each listening to an eager “And do you remember?” falling constantly from delighted lips that cannot seem to talk half fast enough.

But you have taught me much, little Mary Marie.  I understand—­oh, I understand so many things so much better, now, since reading this little story in your round childish hand.  You see, I had almost forgotten that I was a Mary and a Marie—­Jerry calls me Mollie—­and I had wondered what were those contending forces within me.  I know now.  It is the Mary and the Marie trying to settle their old, old quarrel.

It was almost dark when I had finished the manuscript.  The far corners of the attic were peopled with fantastic shadows, and the spiders in the window were swaying, lazy and full-stomached, in the midst of the day’s spoils of gruesome wings and legs.  I got up slowly, stiffly, shivering a little.  I felt suddenly old and worn and ineffably weary.  It is a long, long journey back to our childhood—­sometimes, even though one may be only twenty-eight.

I looked down at the last page of the manuscript.  It was written on the top sheet of a still thick pad of paper, and my fingers fairly tingled suddenly, to go on and cover those unused white sheets—­tell what happened next—­tell the rest of the story; not for the sake of the story—­but for my sake.  It might help me.  It might make things clearer.  It might help to justify myself in my own eyes.  Not that I have any doubts, of course (about leaving Jerry, I mean), but that when I saw it in black and white I could be even more convinced that I was doing what was best for him and best for me.

So I brought the manuscript down to my own room, and this evening I have commenced to write.  I can’t finish it to-night, of course.  But I have to-morrow, and still to-morrow. (I have so many to-morrows now!  And what do they all amount to?) And so I’ll just keep writing, as I have time, till I bring it to the end.

I’m sorry that it must be so sad and sorry an end.  But there’s no other way, of course.  There can be but one ending, as I can see.  I’m sorry.  Mother’ll be sorry, too.  She doesn’t know yet.  I hate to tell her.  Nobody knows—­not even Jerry himself—­yet.  They all think I’m just making a visit to Mother—­and I am—­till I write that letter to Jerry.  And then—­

I believe now that I’ll wait till I’ve finished writing this.  I’ll feel better then.  My mind will be clearer.  I’ll know more what to say.  Just the effort of writing it down—­

Of course, if Jerry and I hadn’t—­

But this is no way to begin.  Like the little Mary Marie of long ago I am in danger of starting my dinner with ice-cream instead of soup!  And so I must begin where I left off, of course.  And that was at the wedding.