She married him.  And a year after, she died.  She was a frail little thing, and I have nothing harsh to say of her.  In a sense she was a victim, first of her mother’s ambition, next of my lack of love, and last of all, of his pursuit.

Perhaps I should not have told you this.  Except my Bishop, who asked for the truth, and to whom I gave it, and whose gentleness and kindness are never-to-be-forgotten things—­except for him, you are the only one I have ever told; the only one I shall ever tell.

But I shall tell you this, and glory in the telling.  That if I had a life to offer of honor and of achievement, I should offer it now to you.  That if I had met you as a dreaming boy, I would have tried to match my dreams to yours.

You may say that with the death of my wife things have changed.  That I might yet find a place to preach, to teach—­to speak to audiences and to sway them.

But any reentrance into the world means the bringing up of the old story—­the question—­the whispered comment.  I do not think that I am a coward.  For the sake of a cause, I could face death with courage.  But I cannot face questioning eyes and whispering lips.

So I am dedicated for all my future to mediocrity.  And what has mediocrity to do with you, who have “never turned your back, but marched face forward”?

And so I am going away.  Not so quickly that there will be comment.  But quickly enough to relieve you of future embarrassment in my behalf.

I do not know that you will answer this.  But I know that whatever your verdict, whether I am still to have the grace of your friendship or to lose it forever, I am glad to have lived this one year in the Tower Rooms.  I am glad to have known the one woman who has given me back—­my boyish dreams of all women.

And now a last line.  If ever in all the years to come you should have need of me, I am at your service.  I shall count nothing too hard that you may ask.  I am whimsically aware that in the midst of all this darkness and tragedy my offer is that of the Mouse to the Lion.  But there came a day when the Mouse paid its debt.  Ask me to pay mine, and I will come—­from the ends of the earth.

This was the letter which Mary found the next morning on her desk in the little office room into which Roger had been shown on the night of the wedding.  She recognized his firm script and found herself trembling as she touched the square white envelope.

But she laid the letter aside until she had given Susan her orders, until she had given other orders over the telephone, until she had interviewed the furnace man and the butcher’s boy, and had written and mailed certain checks.

Then she took the letter with her to her own room, locked the door and read it.

Constance, knocking a little later, was let in, and found her sister dressed and ready for the street.

“I’ve a dozen engagements,” Mary said.  She was drawing on her gloves and smiling.  She was, perhaps, a little pale, but that the Mary of to-day was different from the Mary if yesterday was not visible from outward signs.