Alice Yorke sat for some time in meditation over this letter.  It brought back vividly the time which she had never wholly forgotten.  Often, in the midst of scenes so gay and rich as to amaze her, she had recalled the springtime in the budding woods, with an ardent boy beside her, worshipping her with adoring eyes.  She had lived close to Nature then, and Content once or twice peeped forth at her from its covert with calm and gentle eyes.  She had known pleasure since then, joy, delight, but never content.  However, it was too late now.  Mr. Lancaster and her mother had won the day; she had at last accepted him and an establishment.  She had accepted her fate or had made it.

She showed the letter to her mother.  Mrs. Yorke’s face took on an inscrutable expression.

“You are not going to answer it, of course?” she said.

“Of course, I am; I am going to write him the nicest letter that I know how to write.  He is one of the best friends I ever had.”

“What will Mr. Lancaster say?”

“Mr. Lancaster quite understands.  He is going to be reasonable; that is the condition.”

This appeared to be satisfactory to Mrs. Yorke, or, at least, she said no more.

Alice’s letter to Keith was friendly and even kind.  She had never forgotten him, she said.  Some day she hoped to meet him again.  Keith read this with a pleasant light in his eyes.  He turned the page, and his face suddenly whitened.  She had a piece of news to tell him which might surprise him.  She was engaged to be married to an old friend of her family’s, Mr. Lancaster.  He had met Mr. Lancaster, she remembered, and was sure he would like him, as Mr. Lancaster had liked him so much.

Keith sat long over this letter, his face hard set and very white.  She was lost to him.  He had not known till then how largely he had built his life upon the memory of Alice Yorke.  Deep down under everything that he had striven for had lain the foundation of his hope to win her.  It went down with a crash.  He went to his room, and unlocking his desk, took from his drawer a small package of letters and other little mementos of the past that had been so sweet.  These he put in the fire and, with a grim face, watched them blaze and burn to ashes.  She was dead to him.  He reserved nothing.

The newspapers described the Yorke-Lancaster wedding as one of the most brilliant affairs of the season.  They dwelt particularly on the fortunes of both parties, the value of the presents, and the splendor of the dresses worn on the occasion.  One journal mentioned that Mr. Lancaster was considerably older than the bride, and was regarded as one of the best, because one of the safest, matches to be found in society.

Keith recalled Mr. Lancaster:  dignified, cultivated, and coldly gracious.  Then he recalled his gray hair, and found some satisfaction in it.  He recalled, too, Mrs. Yorke’s friendliness for him.  This, then, was what it meant.  He wondered to himself how he could have been so blind to it.  When he came to think of it, Mr. Lancaster came nearer possessing what others strove for than any one else he knew.  Yet, Youth looks on Youth as peculiarly its own, and Keith found it hard to look on Alice Yorke’s marriage as anything but a sale.