r letter," began Grace as she dropped
into a nearby chair. "Yesterday morning I _did_ receive a letter you
wrote, but it was not for me. The envelope was addressed to me, but the
letter--I read it before I realized that I hadn't that right--was
written to Mr. Stanley Forde. I wrote you an apology, enclosed the other
letter with it and mailed them to you."

"Oh!" Arline gave a horrified gasp. "How perfectly dreadful! How in the
world did I happen to make such a mistake! This is awful!"

"Then you wrote to me at the same time and confused the two letters? I
was afraid of that. But it doesn't matter to me if it doesn't to you."
Grace tried to put on an air of kindly unconcern. Secretly it saddened
her a trifle to know that a stranger had received even an inkling of her
private affairs. Undoubtedly Arline's letter to herself had contained an
expression of sympathy which could not fail to put Mr. Stanley Forde in
possession of certain painful facts relating to her own trouble.

"But it matters a great deal!" exclaimed Arline, flushing deeply. "In
that letter to you I said that I could never be thankful enough that I
had had such a wonderful talk with you. I said, too, that you had made
me see things in a different light and that I knew now that what I had
believed was love wasn't love at all. Worse still, I said that if it had
not been for you I would never have had the courage to break my
engagement, but would have failed to be true to myself. Now, Stanley has
that letter!" Arline made a despairing gesture. "I don't care what he
thinks about _me_, but what will he think about _you_?"

Grace was not prepared to answer this pertinent question from the jilted
Stanley's viewpoint. Personally she had a disagreeably clear idea of
what he was quite likely to think. Yet she was too sturdily honest by
nature to regret the advice she had given Arline in good faith. "I am
sorry this has happened," she returned slowly, "but I am not sorry for
what I said to you. I meant it. I would have said as much to Mr. Forde
had an occasion risen which demanded plain speaking."

"You are Loyalheart, through and through," came impulsively from Arline.
"You would stand by your colors to the death. I couldn't blame you if
you were terribly angry with me for mixing you up so miserably in my
affairs. I should have been more careful, but I was dreadfully upset
when I wrote those letters. You see, Stanley came to my home on the
evening of the day he r