And yet—­it is Midsummer Day; this is the twenty-fourth of June—­and I am on fire with love and longing for you, and I must know whether you care.  If I were strong enough I would offer to wait longer before asking you to tell me—­but I’m not strong enough for that.

I have a plan which I am hoping you will let me carry out, whatever answer you are going to give me.  If you will allow it I will ask Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Gray to go with us on a long horseback ride this afternoon, to have supper at a place I know.  I could take you all in my car if you prefer, but I hope you will not prefer it.  You have never seemed like a motoring girl to me every other one I know is—­and ever since I saw you on Colonel last November I’ve been hoping to have a ride with you.  If I can have it to-day—­Midsummer—­it will be a dream fulfilled.  If only I dared hope my other—­and dearer—­dream were to come true!  Roberta, are we really so different?  I have thought a thousand times of your “stout little cabin on the hilltop,” where you would like to spend “the worst night of the winter.”  All alone? “Well, with a fire for company, and—­perhaps—­a dog.”  But not with a good comrade? “There are so few good comrades—­who can be tolerant of one’s every mood.”  You were right; there are few.  And—­this one might not be so clever as to understand every mood of yours, but—­Roberta, Roberta—­he would love you so much that you wouldn’t mind if he didn’t always understand.  That is—­you wouldn’t mind if, in return, you—­But I dare not say it—­I can only hope—­hope!

Unless you send me word to the contrary by ten o’clock, I will then ask Mr. and Mrs. Stephen, and arrange to come for you at four this afternoon.  You are committed to nothing by agreeing to this arrangement.  But I—­am committed to everything for as long as I live.  RICHARD.

* * * * *

It was well that it was not yet six o’clock in the morning and that Roberta had two long hours to herself before she need come forth from her room.  She needed them, every minute of them, to get herself in hand.

It was a good letter, no doubt of that.  It was neither clever nor eloquent, but it was better:  it was manly and sincere.  It showed self-respect; it showed also humility, a proud humility which rejoiced that it could feel its own unworthiness and know thereby that it would strive to be more fit.  And it showed—­oh, unquestionably it showed!—­the depth of his feeling.  Quite clearly he had restrained a pen that longed to pour forth his heart, yet there were phrases in which his tenderness had been more than he could hold back, and it was those phrases which made the recipient hold her breath a little as she read them, wondering how, if the written words were almost more than she could bear, she could face the spoken ones.