“And what does the will cover? how successful, how potent is the human will? If it were not deeply at variance with Life, would our will make mostly for anguish and for failure? Would it not be a bit more competent than it is? Would history, social and personal, not be a happier story?” Professor Stein’s eyes were hot. “Come up some evening, Mark: any evening when I’m in town: we’ll go into this.” He left me. _j_ Clasping Mildred’s hand in the pied lobby, I touched a warm, proud sorrow. She was changed ... deepened rather. In her great eyes, a new limpidity: and more than ever the counterpoint of her bright hard body and of her spirit, dark and profoundly still, gave to her a beauty almost beyond my bearing. I gripped myself. I silenced my clamoring question: “Mildred, Mildred, did you love him, then?” We sat, touching our food, saying no word, until I had mastered myself. When I was able to speak: “I went to his place this morning, and they let me in.” Her eyes rose to mine and dwelt there quietly. “I saw his face, dead. Even in death it was noble. He must have been a great man, Mildred.” Her eyes assented, serenely. I made my eyes see only the loveliness of this girl: but perhaps my mouth trembled with a jealous pain. “John,” she answered both my eyes and my mouth, “you are suffering too. You are afraid Philip’s death has given him an advantage over you--a sort of perfection easier to love than your own struggling life. That’s not true, John. Would I lunch with you in this gay place to-day, not twenty-four hours after his death, if I responded in such a foolish way to life? You are very dear to me, John: I know that also.” I could not speak. So I took from my pocket the envelope and gave it her, in silence. She examined it, turning it about. Her eyes met mine fully: “How amazing! How amazing!” she whispered. “Where does this come from?” “I found it on the floor not far from where he lay. It might have been nearer, or have blown from its place on the desk. For the windows were open. Why is it amazing?” “Why? Because it is my hand. And because I did not write it.” “Mildred, for the sake of our reason, be sure of what you say. You must have written more than once to Philip.” She paused: her teeth bit hard in her lower lip, a tremor of resolve pushed up to her sharp shoulders. Then, in a quiet containment, she answered me. “I make no mistake, John. I did write, infrequently, to Philip. I never sent him a note by messenger. If I needed to communicate with him quickly, I telephoned, or I wired.” In her pause, the gilt bustle of the room where we were lunching, the room itself, became a shallow and unreal line upon some darkling density about us. Mildred went on: “This is a fine version of my hand. But it is not my hand. And there is more superficial evidence than my conviction, that it is not mine. _Did you notice the envelope_, John?”