It would be too bad to have him lose the comfort those two sheets of paper had given him.  Miriam had seen him as he sat alone for hours in his own room, with the door ajar, caressing the written pages as though they were alive and answered him with love for love.  She knew it was Constance’s letter to Barbara, but she had lacked curiosity as to its contents until to-night.

[Sidenote:  The Plot]

The letter to Laurence Austin was written on paper of the same size.  There was still some of it, in Constance’s desk, in the living-room downstairs.  Suppose she should replace one letter with the other, and, if he ever read it, let him have it all out with Barbara, who was trying to save him from knowledge that he should have had long ago.

The coat slipped to the floor as Miriam considered the plan.  Perhaps one of them would ask her what it was.  In that case she would say, carelessly:  “Oh, a letter Constance left for Laurence Austin.  I did not think it best to deliver it, as it could do no good and might do a great deal of harm.”  She would have the courage for that, surely, but, if she failed at the critical moment, she could say, simply:  “I do not know.”

She crept downstairs and returned with a sheet of Constance’s note-paper.  Neither she nor Barbara had ever been obliged to use it, and it was far back in a corner of a deep drawer, together with North’s check-book, which had been useless for so many years.

As she had expected, it exactly matched the other sheet.  She folded the two together, with the letter to Laurence Austin inside.  North would not be disappointed, now, when he reached into his pocket and found no fond letter from his dead but still beloved Constance.  Barbara could not change this, by rewriting into anything save a cry of passionate love.

[Sidenote:  Subtle Revenge]

Miriam’s whole being glowed with satisfaction.  She thrilled with the pleasure of this subtle revenge upon Constance, who was fully repaid, now, for writing as she had.

"I do not quite trust Miriam.  She loved your father and I took him away from her."

She repeated the words in a whisper, and smiled to think of the deeply loving, passionate page to another man that had filled the place.  Let the Fates do their worst now, for when he should read it——­

[Sidenote:  The Irony of Fate]

Some way, Miriam was very sure that his sight was to be restored to him.  She perceived, now, the irony of his caressing the letter Constance had written to Barbara.  How much more ironical it would be to see him, with that unearthly light upon his face, moving his hand across the page Constance had written to Laurence Austin just before she died.  Miriam well knew that the other letters had come first and that Constance’s last word had been to the man she loved.

The hours passed on, slowly.  The mist that hung over the sea was faintly touched with dawn before Miriam arose, and, taking the coat, went back to Ambrose North’s room.  She paused outside the door, but all was still.