Her curiosity alive, she lay looking at this apparition for some time, unwilling to be heard to move even by a maidservant.  But at length she arose, stole across the floor, picked up the missive, and went back to her bed.  She examined the envelope—­it was of a heavy plain paper; the address—­it was in a hand she had seen but once, on the day when she had copied many pages of material upon the typewriter for her Uncle Calvin—­a rather compact, very regular and positive hand, unmistakably that of a person of education and character.

She opened the letter with fingers that hesitated.  Midsummer Day was at hand; it had begun early!  Two closely written sheets appeared.  Sitting among her pillows, her curly, dusky locks tumbling all about her face, her pulses beating now so fast they shook the paper in her fingers, she read his letter: 

* * * * *

My Roberta:  I can’t begin any other way, for, even though you should never let me use the words again, you have become such a part of me, both of the man I am and of the man I want and mean to become, that in some degree you will always belong to me in spite of yourself.

Why do I write to you to-day?  Because there are things I want to say to you which I could never wait to say when I see you, but which I want you to know before you answer me.  I don’t want to tell you “the story of my life,” but I do feel that you must understand a few of my thoughts, for only so can I be sure that you know me at all.

Before I came to your home, one night last October, I had unconsciously settled into a way of living which as a rule seemed to me all-sufficient.  My friends, my clubs, my books—­yes, I care for my books more than you have ever discovered—­my plans for travel, made up a life which satisfied me—­a part of the time.  Deep down somewhere was a sense of unrest, a knowledge that I was neither getting nor giving all that I was meant to.  But this I was accustomed to stifle—­except at unhappy hours when stifling would not work, and then I was frankly miserable.  Mostly, however, my time was so filled with diversion of one sort or another that I managed to keep such hours from over-whelming me; I worried through them somehow and forgot them as soon as I could.

From the first day that I came through your door my point of view was gradually and strangely altered.  I saw for the first time in my life what a home might be.  It attracted me; more, it showed me how empty my own life was, that I had thought so full.  The sight of your mother, of your brothers, of your sisters, of your brother’s little children—­each of these had its effect on me.  As for yourself—­Roberta, I don’t know how to tell you that; at least I don’t know how to tell you on paper.  I can imagine finding words to tell you, if—­you were very much nearer to me than you are now.  I hardly dare think of that!