"If it is wrong I couldn't help it," she whispers low. She turns her face to the pillow and covers it with a soft, white arm. One ear alone shows, a rosy spot against the white. II Nine o'clock at a down-town medical office. A man who walks rapidly, but quietly, enters and takes up the morning mail. A number of business letters he finds and a dainty envelope, with writing which he knows at sight. He steps to the light and looks at the postmark. "Good-morning," says his partner, entering. The man nods absently, and, tearing open the envelope, takes out this letter: "MY FRIEND:-- "I don't know what you will think of me after this; anyway, I cannot help telling you what to-night lies heavy on my heart and mind. I've tried to keep still; God knows I've tried, and so hard; but Nature is Nature, and I am a woman. Oh, if you men only knew what that means, you'd forgive us much, and pity! You have so much in life and we so little, and you torture us so with that little, which to us is so great, our all; leading us on against our will, against our better judgment, until we love you, not realizing at first the madness of unrequited love. Oh, the cruelty of it, and but for a pastime. "But I do not mean to charge you. You are not as other men; you are not wrong. Besides, why should I not say it? I love you. Yes, you; a man who knows not the meaning of the word; who meant to be but a friend, my best friend. Oh, you have been blind, blind all the years since first I knew you; since first you began telling me of yourself and of your hopes. You did not know what it meant to such as I to live in the ambition of another, to hope through another's hope, to exult in another's success. I am confessing, for the first time--and the last time. Know, man, all the time I loved you. Forgive me that I tell you. I cannot help it. I am a woman, and love in a woman's life is stronger than will, stronger than all else together. "I ask nothing. I expect nothing. I could not keep quiet longer. It was killing me, and you never saw. I did not mean to tell you anything, till this moment--least of all, in this way. But it is done, and I'm glad--yes, happier than I have been for weeks. It is our woman's nature; a nature we do not ourselves understand. "My friend, I cannot see you again. Things cannot go on as they were. It was torture--you know not what torture--and life is short. If you would be kind, avoid me. The town is wide, and we have each our work. Time will pass. Remember, you have done nothing wrong. If there be one at fault it is Nature, for only half doing her work. You are good and noble. Good-bye. I trust you, for, God bless you, I love you." The letter dropped, and the man stood looking out with unseeing eyes, on the shifting street. A patient came in and sat down, waiting.