For answer she handed me a letter. It bore a United States stamp and was addressed to her in a bold, emphatic, perpendicular hand which revealed the writer’s vigorous determination of character. “From my husband. Read it.” Standing a little apart from her at the window, I drew out a carefully folded letter. It was dated from Sheba, Massachusetts, nine days previous to its arrival. While I read it, I watched her stealthily, how she stood charmingly irresolute, twisting the gold-band off and on her finger. _My dearest Vi:_ _I have written you many times, asking you to fix definitely the day of your return. You’ve put me off with all kinds of excuses. Latterly you have not even referred to my question. My dear child, don’t think I blame you; you probably have your own reasons for what you are doing. But people are beginning to talk about us here. For your own sake you ought to return. We’ve always tried to play fair by one another. You were always game, Vi; and now it’s up to you._ _I’m lonely. I want my little Dorrie. Most of all I want my wife. I can’t stand this absence much longer. On receipt of this send me a cable “Coming,” followed by the date of your sailing. If I don’t receive such a cable within ten days of mailing this letter, I shall jump on a boat and come over. I don’t distrust you, but I’m worn out with waiting. Can’t you understand how I want you? Nothing in the world matters to me, my child, except you._ _Your affectionate husband,_ _Randall._ I re-folded it methodically and returned it to the envelope. I tried to picture this man who had sent it. He was manifestly elderly. Probably he was portly, a trifle pompous and genially paternal in his manners. What volumes his trick of calling her “my child” revealed concerning their relations. I contrasted him with Vi. Vi with her eager youth, her passion to taste life’s rapture, her slim white body so alluring and so gracious, her physical fineness, her possibilities for bestowing and receiving natural joy. If I let her go, she would slowly lose her zest for life. She would forget that she was a woman and would sink prematurely into stolid middle-age. Her possibilities of motherhood would slip from her untaken and never to be renewed. The little rascals, with golden hair and features which should perpetuate her beauty, would never be born to her. Those children should be hers and mine. _Hers and mine_. How the words beat upon my brain! They were like the fists of little children, battering against the closed doors of existence. It was monstrous that the justice of this husband’s claim to her should be based on his injustice in having married her.