One morning early in December Jane received a little note from Helen, who, according to Mrs. Weatherbee’s arrangements, was doing her work quietly, and without the possibility of companions well meant though perhaps unthinking. Helen took her exercise with the others, ate her meals in the refectory, went to a few lectures, but outside of that she was leading such a school life as an artist or a very serious student might be expected to adhere to. All her rollicking good humored individuality was suddenly swallowed up in what appeared to her companions as concentration, but Jane and Judith surmised it was associated with a more serious and less ordinary condition of affairs. With uncertain fingers Jane tore open the little note inscribed in the peculiarly foreign vertical penmanship. She feared it might be a good bye, or at least the forerunner of a farewell, as Helen for two months past seemed to be at Wellington only from moment to moment, ready to leave at a word—the word Jane had so well forestalled up to the present. The missive, however, was not an adieu. It ran as follows: “My dearest friend: “You have been very patient with Helen. Each day I have longed for the pleasure of throwing open to you my anguished heart, but every day comes, and is closed by a night as dark as that before, and still I must wait—wait! “The little card tied to my flowers I send with this. The name on it is almost sacred to me, and the sight of that name gave me the shock you witnessed. I felt he must be near, and that soon I would see him, but now I know it was all a cruel hoax, and I the victim of that hateful girl, who has so much wronged me, here at this beautiful school! “I must tell you, my friend, that I did not know that other woman (she is more than girl), the black-eyed, black-haired foreigner. But now I know her. She was at Blindwood, and there with her then yellow hair, she taught in the gym. So it was she who perpetrated this outrage—she who thought it smart to see me almost faint with hope from the word written on my flower card. “But have patience, my friend, and all will still be well, with your grateful and affectionate “Helen.” The fateful card fell into Jane’s lap. On it was written the words: “To beloved Helka from Stanislaus.” She turned over and over the innocent bit of pasteboard. And that was all—just those two names. What did it mean? Who was Stanislaus?