And then as soon as she was alone she read John’s letter--the letter he had written in his desolate room before he left Camelford. It went to Kate’s heart. She read it and she cried, and she kissed the insensible paper, and her load seemed lifted off her mind. She had been miserable half an hour ago, and now she was happy. It was such an answer to all her questionings as nothing else could have given. She cried, and the colour came back to her cheek and the light to her eyes. “I am not the bank,” she said to herself, with a return of her old levity. “It is not me he means to give up; he must never, never give up me.” And then she kissed the letter again. She had never done such a thing all her life; but she did it now without stopping to think, and she read over the end of it, “yours, and only yours, whatever may happen,” with a gush of warmth and gladness at her heart. “Dear John! poor John! he is so fond of me. Why is he so fond of me?” she said to herself with sweet tears. And then all at once it struck her as with a great chill that there was more than mere fondness in this letter of John’s. “If you should ever want me.” “This may pass over and be to you as if it had never been.” How could that be? Was not he hers and she his as of old? Just then there came a knock to the door, and two little notes were handed in to her. Another cold thrill went over her as she saw them. One was from her father, and the other from Fred Huntley. “My dear, I am grieved your head aches,” wrote the first, “but I don’t wonder. Keep quite quiet till five, and then come down to the library and make two men very happy. My pretty Kate! Your fond father, J. C.”