“Dear Paul,” she began, “I am heart broken, and can never be happy again. Neither of us can, whichever way it turns. If you are convicted, it must be over with us, of course. If you are not, we can never live down the disgrace. Oh, Paul, why not tell exactly how it happened? People say that most likely nothing would be done to you if you would. I can’t come to you. I couldn’t bear to see you in prison. It would kill me. I am nearly killed now. My head aches all the time, I can’t sleep, and everything is so dreadful and so different from what it was to have been. What have I done that this should come upon me, and why was Elithe permitted to come here? If she had staid in Samona, Jack would have staid there, too. Has it ever occurred to you that if it were some one beside Jack whom you shot Elithe’s memory would not be quite so good? She must have liked him better than she pretended. Poor Jack. It is dreadful, and I am so unhappy. So is mamma. Bills are coming in and they are awful, and we have no good of them. I am so tired and must stop. They have kindly arranged it that I need not appear at the trial, and I am glad. I should die if I had to go on the stand. I believe I shall die as it is. Good-bye. From your wretched Clarice.” She could scarcely have written a more heartless letter if she had tried. Everything about herself and her own unhappiness and nothing of pity or comfort for Paul, who took her letter eagerly when his mother brought it to him and tearing it open read it almost at a glance. Then his head began to droop lower and lower, and his chest to heave with the emotions he could not keep back. “What is it, Paul?” his mother asked, but he did not answer. He could not tell her that the letter had brought him more pain than pleasure. Indeed, it was all pain, and to himself he said, “She never loved me as I did her.” This hurt him cruelly, though scarcely more than the knowledge that she believed he shot Jack, and that Elithe’s testimony would be biased because it was Jack. Still it was something to hear from Clarice at all, and he kept her letter in his hand and looked at the “Dear Paul” many times and tried to find excuses for her. It was Saturday when he received Clarice’s letter and Monday was to be the first day of the trial. That night just before dark Tom came to him with the evening papers and a note from Elithe. As the day of the trial came nearer she grew more nervous and frightened. The band, which she said was pressing against her forehead, tightened its hold until it seemed to her it was cutting into her flesh. Her head above it grew hot, and her head below it so cold that her teeth sometimes chattered with the chill oppressing her.