Miss Anstice smiled a sceptical smile, which deepened into a laugh when she picked up the next note, which stated that Mrs. Brown-Livingston was also holding back a number of the same much-sought tickets for her friends, but would part with a few to Miss Anstice if informed at once.
"What frauds these mortals be!" exclaimed Winifred, laying both requests aside to amuse her father later.
At the next envelope she colored hotly, for she recognized the handwriting instantly. Indeed it was an easily recognizable superscription and of very distinct individuality,--a back-hand which at first glance gave the impression that it must be held up to the mirror to be read, but on closer scrutiny looked plainer than the upright round hand of the copy-books. It did not need the "F" upon the seal to tell Winifred Anstice from whom it came. She opened it, as she opened all sealed documents, with a hairpin, though two paper-cutters of silver and ivory lay at her hand on the tray.
The note was brief. It was dated "University Club, Midnight," and had no beginning, as if the writer could think of none befitting his feeling.
"I am distracted," it began abruptly, "with the contest of fears and hopes, regret and satisfaction. If I seem to have unloaded upon you a burden of responsibility which was justly mine, I beg you to believe that I did it only because I could see no other way, and even then I meant only to ask you to share it. In place of this, with characteristic generosity you insisted upon assuming the whole. This must not be. Pray name some hour when I may come to you, and let it be to-morrow. You don't know how far off that seems."
Only that, and then the signature. It was a strange note from a lover; but to Winifred Anstice it was full of the assurance that the man to whom she had given her heart (for she admitted it to herself now) was of a nature large enough to put himself and his own feelings aside and to believe that she too was capable of the larger vision, the renunciation of present happiness for pressing duty. The highest plane upon which those who love can meet is this of united work and united self-sacrifice.
Winifred's eyes glistened as she read, and when she had finished, she slipped the note into her pocket for a second reading. As she did so, Miss Standish entered.