Nothing could have been simpler or more unconventional than the intercourse between these young people.  Miss Lee had known Hammond all her life; Maggie always spoke and thought of herself as second to Annabel in Geoffrey Hammond’s regard.  One brilliant autumn day, however, he surprised Maggie by asking her to take a long walk alone with him.  No words were said during this ramble to open Maggie Oliphant’s eyes to the true state of Hammond’s feelings for her, but when she returned from her walk she could not help noticing Annabel Lee’s unaccountable depression.  It was not until later, however, that Maggie attributed a certain pathetic, almost heart-broken, look in her friend’s lovely eyes to its true cause.

Hammond was a graduate of St. Hilda’s College at Kingsdene, and the three friends often talked of the happy meetings they would have during the coming winter.  He was a man of large property, and the favorite amusement of these young people was in talking over the brilliant life which lay before Hammond when he took possession of his estates.  He would be the ideal landlord of his age; the people who lived on his property would, when he attained his majority, enter into a millennium of bliss.

Maggie returned to St. Benet’s, imagining herself quite heart-whole, but happiness shone out of her eyes, and there was a new, tender ring in her voice for which she could not account to herself and which added a new fascination to her beauty.

Shortly after the commencement of the term Hammond met Miss Oliphant by accident just outside Kingsdene.

“I was going to post a letter to you,” he said.  His face was unusually pale, his eyes full of joy and yet of solicitude.

“You can tell me what you have written,” replied Maggie in her gayest voice.

“No, I would rather you read my letter.”

He thrust it into her hand and immediately, to her astonishment, left her.

As she walked home through the frosty air she opened Hammond’s letter and read its contents.  It contained an earnest appeal for her love and an assurance that all the happiness of the writer’s future life depended on her consenting to marry him.  Would she be his wife when her three years’ term at St. Benet’s came to an end?

No letter could be more manly, more simple.  Its contents went straight to the depths of a heart easily swayed and full of strong affection.

“Yes, I love him,” whispered the girl; “I did not know it until I read this letter, but I am sure of myself now.  Yes, I love him better than any one else in the world.”

A joyous light filled Maggie’s brown eyes; her heart was gay.  She rushed to Annabel’s room to tell her news and to claim the sympathy which had never hitherto been denied her and which was essential to the completion of her happiness.

When Maggie entered her friend’s room she saw, to her surprise, that Annabel was lying on her bed with flushed cheeks.  Two hours before she had been, to all appearance, in brilliant health; now her face burned with fever and her beautiful dark eyes were glazed with pain.