“Why do I pour these personal sorrows upon you, my Lady of Sympathy?  I am heartsick for comfort.

“Yours, “J.”

Bambi laid her cheek against the poor, hurt letter, and cried.

“My poor, bungling Jarvis, how I must have hurt you!”

She read it again, and all at once light flooded in.

“Why, it’s Richard, of course!  He thinks I am in love with Richard!  The dear old goose!  He sees so little and sees that crooked.”

She went in search of him, determined to tell the whole foolish story, to explain the imaginary obstacles that divided them.  But he was not to be found, so the impulse died, and she determined to play the farce out to its end, and now, that she knew the core of the whole situation, she could make it count for their final readjustment.

She wrote him at once: 

“MY DEAR JARVIS:  At last I feel that there is truth between us.  I have suspected that you were not happy in your love life.  But I wanted not to pry into locked chambers.  Now we can be glad of the bond that lies between us, for I, too, go heart hungry through the days.

“I have not spoken to you of my home, or my husband, but now that you have become such a part of my thought life, I feel no disloyalty in the truth.

“My husband is a man who has never felt the want of affection.  He is so self-centred in his devotion to his work that I have always been shut out of his heart.  At first this did not trouble me, for I was ambitious, too.  But so many things have happened to develop me this last year, to awaken me to my full womanhood!

“I have had to face, as you do, the ache of an unwanted love, tossed back to eat its way like a corrosive acid.  Once, not long ago, I thought, perhaps, things were going to change for me.  I thought he wanted me.  But now I have come to know that it is to another woman he turns for sympathy and understanding.

“So, you see, my dear, we two have the same heart history.  No wonder we have felt our way through time and space, to clasp hands in such deep affinity.  I lay my hands upon your head, Jarvis.

“YOUR LADY.”

His reply came by the first mail.

“Oh, my dear, my dear, we have found each other at last, in all truth.  It was meant from the beginning of time that it should be so.  Let me come to you.  I cannot bear to live another hour without the touch of your hand.  To think that I do not know your name, or the colour of your kind eyes!  Say that I may come?

                                        “Devotedly,
                                        “JARVIS.”

“JARVIS, MY BIG BOY:  You may not come yet.  It is part of a dream, cherished since you came to be the heart of me, that we should not come together until the night of the opening of our play.  I know you will poohpooh this as sentimental nonsense.  You may even call it theatrical.  But let me have my way, this last one time.  Afterward, my way shall be yours, beloved.  Write me to say you will be patient with my foolishness!