He turned the corner with a last look at the turreted and gabled roof of the great Drake mansion, faint unreal shadows against the starlit sky, as though, in his newly acquired knowledge of the tremendous catastrophe impending, it lay against the crowded silhouette of the city like a thing of dreams to vanish with the awakening reality. Before the next month was over, Doris had married young Boskirk--a quiet country wedding whose simplicity excited much comment. Before another fortnight the market, which had been slowly receding before the rising wrath of a great financial panic, broke violently. CHAPTER XXIII THE LETTER TO PATSIE Two days after the breaking of his engagement to Doris, Bojo wrote to Patsie. His letter--the first he had written her--he was two days in composing, tearing up several drafts. He was afraid to say too much, and to discuss trivial matters seemed to him insincere. Finally he sent this letter: Dear Drina: I suppose by now Doris has told you of what has happened. There are a great many things I want you to know about these trying months, that I've wanted you to know and have been hurt that you didn't know. Now that it's over I realize what a tragedy it would have been, and yet I would have gone on believing it was the right thing to do, trying to make myself believe in what I was doing. During all this time I have never forgotten certain things you said to me, your message the day of the panic, the look in your eyes that afternoon before I went in to see your father and--other memories. I want to see you. Where are you? When will you be back in New York? Faithfully yours, BOJO. Having written this he carried it around in his pocket for another day before posting it. No sooner was it irrevocably beyond his hands than he had the feeling that he had committed an irretrievable blunder. The next moment it seemed to him that he had done the direct and courageous thing, that she would understand and be grateful to him for his frankness. Each morning he heard the rustle of the mail slipping under the door with a sudden cold foreboding, certain that her letter had come. Each evening, back from the grind of the factory, he came into the monastic corridors of Westover Court and turned the corner of the desk with a hot-and-cold hope that in the letter-box there, under the number 51, would be a letter waiting for him. When after a week no word had come, he began to make excuses. She was away on a visit, her mail had to be forwarded or more probably held for her return. But one day, happening to glance at the social column, in a report of the Berkshires he found her name as a contender in a tennis tournament. He wrote a second note: Dear Patsie: Did you get my letter of ten days ago, and won't you write me? Yours, BOJO.