Would it not be wiser, even more manly, for him--a man over twice her years--to leave her alone with her secret, and so pass out of her innocent young life as chancefully as he had entered it?
But was it altogether chanceful?
Was there not in her innocent happiness in him a recognition of something in him better than he had dared to think himself?
It was the last conceit of the humility of love.
He reached his hotel at last, unresolved, perplexed, yet singularly happy.

The clerk handed him, in passing, a business-looking letter, formally addressed.

Without opening it, he took it to his room, and throwing himself listlessly on a chair by the window again tried to think.

But the atmosphere of his room only recalled to him the mysterious gift he had found the day before on his pillow.

He felt now with a thrill that it must have been from HER.