might
have meant much if the man had died two years earlier. Living people
were very little to Paul Griggs. They might as well be dead, he thought.
Nevertheless, the bald fact that Reanda was gone, made him thoughtful.
Another figure had disappeared out of his life, though it had not meant
very much. He believed, and had always believed, that Reanda had loved
Francesca in secret, though she had treated him as a mere friend, as a
protectress should treat one who needs her protection.

Griggs turned and took up the note to look at it keenly, for he believed
himself a judge of handwriting, and he thought that he might detect in
hers the indications of any great suffering. The lines ran down a little
at the end, but otherwise the large, careful hand was the same as ever,
learned in a convent and little changed since, even as the woman herself
had changed little. She was the same always, simple, honest, strangely
maidenlike, thoroughly good.

He turned to the window again. So Reanda was dead. He would not find
Gloria, to whatsoever place he was gone. The shadow of a smile wreathed
itself about the mouth of the lonely man--the last that was there for a
long time after that day. Gloria was dead, but Gloria was his, and he
hers, for ever and ever. Neither heaven nor hell could tear up his heart
nor loosen the strong hold of all of him that clung to her and had grown
about her and through her, till he and she were quite one.

Then, all at once, he wondered what it could be that Reanda had wished
to send him from beyond the grave. He turned, took the parcel, and
snapped the black string with his fingers, and took off the paper.
Within was the parcel, wrapped in a second paper and firmly tied with
broad tape. A few words were written on the outside.

"To be given to Paul Griggs when I am dead. A. R."

The superscription told nothing, but he looked at it curiously as one
does at such things, when the sender is beyond answer. He cut the white
tape, for it was tied so tightly that he could not slip a finger under
it to break it. There was something of hard determination in the way it
was tied.

It contained letters in their envelopes, as they had reached Reanda
through the post, all of the same size, laid neatly one upon the
other--a score or more of them.

Griggs felt his hand shake, for he recognized Gloria's writing. His
first impulse was to burn the whole package, as it was, reverently, as
something which had belonged to