The next day the doctor spent a full hour at Mrs. Buzzell’s talking to Clara of Frauenstein and his grand social-palace scheme. Clara expressed regret that she had not seen him. “Regret!” said the doctor; “you may well regret, for you have lost a rare pleasure. When you see him you will love him, and at first sight too. I am sure of it, for he is the only man I ever met whom I thought worthy of you. He is coming back, though, and then you shall see him. He’s a man after my own heart in everything. He’s perfect; he’s without a flaw. I know him just as well as if I had been intimate with him for years. Every thought and feeling of the man is honest and true, and what is better than all, he has faith in human nature.” Clara was interested, but the count was no vital part of her thoughts as he was of her father’s, and besides her heart was filled that day with its old pain. Albert had written, saying simply that, as a year had passed, he thought he had a right to expect she would have had time to reflect upon their mutual position, and that he hoped she had decided to return. It was a very cold letter, but it moved her deeply, and under the first impulse she wrote, sinking every thought of pride, hoping only, blindly, that he would, by an impulse as simple, and as frankly expressed as hers, prove that he loved her despite all that had happened. She wrote: “DEAR ALBERT:—Your letter moves me deeply, but it does not show me that you have any tender thought of me, any motive of real love in saying you expect me to return. Do you know so little of me after all, as to suppose that I can be influenced by the wealth you speak of? Can you doubt that I would rather be your wife were you poor and unknown, if you only loved me as once you did, than to be your queen were you master of the world, if I must see you seek in other women that which I alone would give? “Oh, Albert! why can I never make you see me as I am? I have no pride, as you think; willingly would I prove myself the very queen of fools in the eyes of the world—would kneel in the dust and kiss your feet, could I thereby find that you love me with the divine tenderness that once made my life. Dear one, what shall I say? What shall I do? I long, with all my being, for the tender words you used to breathe so eloquently, for the sight of your beautiful eyes, for your kisses and caresses. If you do really want me—me, not your legal mate, but Clara—you will show me this beyond the shadow of a doubt. “I cannot tell you how I have suffered, and do suffer still, at times. I pray only that I may wake from this long cold night of misery, and find myself in the blessed warmth and light of that love which made me once your proud and happy CLARA.”