ld she or should she not write to Tom? Although she owed the
usual amount of letters to various correspondents, she now thought only
of writing to the man for whose strange silence she could not account.
It was Tom's place to write her. She had answered his first letter. Yet
she could not believe that carelessness was responsible for his silence.
Something must have happened to him. But what? She knitted her brows in
an agony of indecision, then giving her pen an energetic shake that
betokened definite purpose, she began:

"DEAR TOM:

"It is now over a week since last I heard from you. What----"

The loud ring of the doorbell caused her to break off abruptly the
sentence she had begun. With that curious intuition which sometimes
manifests itself unbidden, she was seized with the startled conviction
that the bell had conveyed the news of an arrival important to herself.
Listening with an anxiety she could not yet understand, she heard a
man's deep tones raised in inquiry. Then came the lighter voice of the
maid who had answered the door. Then----

"Miss Harlowe," the maid had entered the living-room and addressed her,
"there's a special delivery letter come for you. Will you please sign
for it?"

"Thank you, Alice." Grace sprang to her feet and hurried into the hall.
The messenger handed her a letter and shoved his book toward her,
indicating the place for her signature. Hastily signing and returning
the book, Grace dismissed the man, and sank to the oak settee in the
hall, her heart thumping wildly. She had already recognized the
handwriting on the envelope, not as Tom's familiar flowing hand, but as
the spidery, wavering script of Mrs. Gray. With trembling fingers she
tore open the envelope and read:

"DEAR GRACE:

"Have you heard from Tom? I am dreadfully worried. I have only
received the one letter from him of which you already know. It is
not in the least like him to thus put off writing me. He knew
before he went that I should be uneasy about him, and promised
faithfully to write me every other day. For the sake of your
anxious and bewildered Fairy Godmother, will you come to me as soon
as possible, if you have not heard from him? If so, then telegraph
me to that effect and I shall rest easier. I have put off writing
you from day to day, in the hope that I might receive news of my
boy, and also because I could not bear to spoil your pleasure.