the post, was the last girl on God's wide earth whom I should have
chosen thus to encounter - a midnight intruder in the very house
where I had been reluctantly received on her account!

I forgot Raffles. I forgot the new and unforgivable grudge I had
against him now. I forgot his very hand across my mouth, even
before he paid me the compliment of removing it. There was the only
girl in all the world: I had eyes and brains for no one and for
nothing else. She had neither seen nor heard us, had looked neither
to the right hand nor the left. But a small oak table stood on the
opposite side of the hall; it was to this table that she went. On
it was one of those boxes in which one puts one's letters for the
post; and she stooped to read by her candle the times at which this
box was cleared.

The loud clock ticked and ticked. She was standing at her full
height now, her candle on the table, her letter in both hands, and
in her downcast face a sweet and pitiful perplexity that drew the
tears to my eyes. Through a film I saw her open the envelope so
lately sealed and read her letter once more, as though she would
have altered it a little at the last. It was too late for that;
but of a sudden she plucked a rose from her bosom, and was pressing
it in with her letter when I groaned aloud.

How could I help it? The letter was for me: of that I was as sure
as though I had been looking over her shoulder. She was as true as
tempered steel; there were not two of us to whom she wrote and sent
roses at dead of night. It was her one chance of writing to me.
None would know that she had written. And she cared enough to soften
the reproaches I had richly earned, with a red rose warm from her own