I wonder it's not a wreck.

Come, put away your business--there." She placed the letter and its envelope on the desk.
"Now sit here while I tell you things." An hour they were there, lingering in talk--talking in a circle; for at regular intervals Nancy must return to this: "I believe no wife ever goes away until there is absolutely no shred of possibility left--no last bit of realness to hold her.

But now I know your stanchness." "Really, Nance--I can't tell you how much you please me." There was a knock at the door.

They looked at each other bewildered.
"The telephone, sir," said the maid in response to Allan's tardy "Come in." When he had gone, whistling cheerily, she walked nervously about the room, studying familiar objects from out of her animated meditation.
Coming to his desk, she snuggled affectionately into his chair and gazed fondly over its litter of papers.

With a little instinctive move to bring somewhat of order to the chaos, she reached forward, but her elbow brushed to the floor two or three letters that had lain at the edge of the desk.
As she stooped to pick up the fallen papers the letter Bernal had left lay open before her, a letter written in long, slanting but vividly legible characters.