Frank decided to look in on them.  He had been oddly shaken by the talk with his uncle.  What tragedies men hid beneath the smooth exteriors of successful careers?  He had always thought his uncle’s home a happy one.  Doubtless it was—­happy enough.  Love perhaps was not essential to successful unions.  Frank wondered why he had not asked Aleta Boice to be his wife.  They were good comrades, had congenial tastes.  They would both be better off; less lonely.  A sudden, long-forgotten feeling stirred within his heart.  He had missed Aleta in the past few days.  Why not go to her now; lay the question before her?  Perhaps love might come to them both.

CHAPTER XCI

CONCLUSION

For years thereafter Frank was haunted by the wraiths of vain conjecture—­morbid questionings of what might have occurred if he had caught the train for Monterey that afternoon.  For he was not to seek Aleta at Carmel.  An official of the Exposition Company met Frank on the street.  They talked a shade too long.  Frank missed the train by half a minute.  He shrugged his shoulders petulantly, found his father at the club.  That evening they attended a comedy.

He was not yet out of bed when the office telephoned him the next morning.  “Didn’t he know Norah France rather well?” the City Editor inquired.  Frank admitted it sleepily.

Had he a picture of her?

Frank denied this.  No.  He didn’t know where one might be obtained.  Had
Norah printed a poem or something?  W-h-a-a-t!

The voice at the telephone repeated its message.  “Norah France was found dead in her room at Carmel this morning.  Suicide probably.  Empty vial and a letter....  The Carmel authorities haven’t come through yet.”

Frank began to dress hurriedly.  Again the telephone rang.  Wire for him. 
Should they send it up?  No, he would be down in a minute.

The telegram was from Aleta.  It read:  “Am returning noon train.  See you at my apartment six P.M.”

Stanley did not see his father in the dining room.  He gulped a cup of coffee and went down to the office.  He had planned an editorial for today.  But his mind was full of Norah France just now.

Poor child!  How she had loved life in her strangely vivid moods!  And how she had brooded upon its injustice in her alternating tempers of depression!  He remembered now Aleta’s mention of a love affair that turned out badly.  Aleta had gone down to hearten her friend from these dolors.  And he recalled, with a desperate, tearing remorse, a casual-enough remark of Norah’s:  “You always cheer me up, Frank, when you come to see me.”

He recalled, as well, her comment, months before, that she would awake from her dream in one way or another.  Well, she had fulfilled her promise.  God grant, he thought passionately, that the awakening had been in a happier world.