Naia.

* * * * *

The line enclosed from Ruhannah touched him deeply:

* * * * *

I cannot speak of it yet. Please, when you go to Brookhollow, have
flowers planted. You know where our plot is. Have it made pretty for
them.

Rue.

* * * * *

He wrote at once exactly the sort of letter that an impulsive,
warm-hearted young man might take time to write to a bereaved friend.
He was genuinely grieved and sorry for her, but he was glad when his
letter was finished and mailed, and he could turn his thoughts into
other and gayer channels.

To this letter she replied, thanking him for what he had written and
for what he had done to make the plot in the local cemetery "pretty."

She asked him to keep the keys to the house in Brookhollow. Then
followed a simple report of her quiet and studious daily life in the
home of the Princess Mistchenka; of her progress in her studies; of
her hopes that in due time she might become sufficiently educated to
take care of herself.

It was a slightly dull, laboured, almost emotionless letter. Always
willing to shirk correspondence, he persuaded himself that the letter
called for no immediate answer. After all, it was not to be expected
that a very young girl whom a man had met only twice in his life could
hold his interest very long, when absent. However, he meant to write
her again; thought of doing so several times during the next twelve
months.

It was a year before another letter came from her. And, reading it, he
was a little surprised to discover how rapidly immaturity can mature
under the shock of circumstances and exotic conditions which tend
toward forced growth.

* * * * *

Mon cher ami:

I was silly enough to hope you might write to me. But I suppose you
have far more interesting and important matters to occupy you.

Still, don't you sometimes remember the girl you drove home with in a
sleigh one winter night, ages ago? Don't you sometimes think of the
girl who came creeping upstairs, half dead, to your studio door? And
don't you sometimes wonder what has become of her?

Why is it that a girl is always more loyal to past memories than a
man ever is? Don't answer that it is beca