Esther was feeling too happy to be cross.  Besides it was rather funny to be accused of clandestine correspondence.

“I think I’ll go and help Jane with the pup,” she said cheerfully.  “Too bad you didn’t come in sooner, mother.  Dr. Callandar was here.”

“Then you do refuse to show me the letter?”

“If I had one I should certainly refuse to show it.  Why do you let yourself get so excited, mother?  You never used to act like this.  It must be nerves.  Every one notices how changed you are.”  She paused, arrested by the frightened look which replaced the futile anger on her step-mother’s face.

“I’m not different.  Who says I am different?  It is you who are trying to make a fuss.  I’m sure I do not care about your letter.  Why should I?  Your father always seemed to think you needed no advice from any one.  Only don’t imagine that I am blind.  I saw you with a letter.”

Having triumphantly secured the last word, she turned to busy herself with the tea-tray, and Esther, knowing the uselessness of argument, went on toward the house.  Aunt Amy attempted to follow but was stopped by Mary.

“Amy, what did that doctor want here?”

“He came to see me.”

Mary laughed.  “Likely!” she said.  “This tea is quite cold.  Was it he who left the letter for Esther?”

“Esther didn’t have a letter.  I had one.”

Again the incredulous laugh, and the dull red mounted into Aunt Amy’s faded cheeks.  She clutched the treasured letter tightly under her dress.  This mocking woman should never see it!  But as she turned again to leave her, another consideration appealed to her unstable mind.  Mary suspected Esther—­and nothing would annoy her more than to find herself mistaken.  On impulse Aunt Amy flung the letter upon the tea-tray.

“There it is.  Read it, if you like.  It has nothing to do with Esther.  Or any one else.  I found it in one of your mother’s old trunks.”

Left alone, Mary Coombe drank her tea, which after all was not very cold.  She was not really interested in the letter, now that she had got it.  Had not a vagrant breeze tossed it, obtrusively, upon her lap, she would probably not have looked at it.

Listlessly she picked it up, opened it, glanced at the firm, clear writing....

A sharp, tingling shock ran through her.  It was as if some one had knocked, loudly, at dead of night at a closed door!  That writing—­how absurdly fanciful she was getting!

“Dearest wife,” she read, “at last I can call you ‘wife’ without fear”—­the vagrant breeze, which had tossed the letter into her lap, tossed it off again.  Her glance followed it, fascinated!

Of course she had dreamed the writing?  She had been terribly troubled by dreams of late.  But what had Amy said about finding the paper in her mother’s trunk?  The whole thing was a fantastic nightmare.  She had but to lean forward, pick up the letter, read it properly and laugh at her foolishness.