This meant he had been writing it on the Sunday evening. Then, Lockwood reasoned, knowing the routine, if he had written another, which he completed and addressed, it would, in natural course, have been put with the letters for the mail, and would have been posted by Ito that next morning. What an oversight, never to have asked Ito about that matter. It was an inviolable custom for the butler to take all letters laid on a certain small table, and put them in the pillar box, early in the morning. Had Ito done this? It must be inquired into. But far more absorbing was the actual letter before him. How could it be possible that John Waring, the dignified scholar, the confirmed bachelor, should have loved this mystery girl? Yet, even as he formulated the question, Gordon Lockwood knew the answer. He knew that from his own point of view it would not be impossible or even difficult for any man with two eyes in his head to love that fascinating, enchanting personality. And as he pondered, he knew that he loved her himself. Yes, had loved her almost from the moment he first saw her. Certainly from the time he sat behind her at the lecture, and counted the queer little ball fringes in the back of her dainty gown. Those fringes! Lockwood gave a groan as a sudden thought came to him. He jumped up, and with a determined air, set about burning the inexplicable letter that John Waring had written and thrown away. In the empty fireplace of the old-fashioned room, Lockwood touched a match to the sheet and burned it to an ash. Then he went over to the Waring house. It was an hour or so later that Callie reported to Miss Bascom. “Queer goin’s on,” the girl said, rolling her eyes at her eager listener, “Mr. Lockwood, now, he burnt some papers, and Miss Austin, too, she burnt some papers.” “What’s queer about that?” snapped Miss Bascom, who had hoped for something more sensational. “Well, it’s sorta strange they’re both burnin’ paper at the same time. And both so sly about it. Mr. Lockwood he kep’ lookin’ back at the fireplace as he went outa the door, and Miss Austin, she jumped like she was shot, when I come in suddenly an’ found her stoopin’ over the fireplace. An’ too, Miss Bascom, whatever else she burnt, she burnt that picture she had of Doctor Waring.” “Did she have his picture?” “Yep, one Mr. Lockwood guv her, after Nora carried off the one she cut out of a paper.” “What in the world did that girl want of Doctor Waring’s picture?” “I dunno, ma’am. What they call hero-worship, I guess. Just like I’ve got some several pictures of Harold Massinger, that man who plays Caveman in the Movies! My, but he’s handsome!” “And so Miss Austin burned a photograph of John Waring?” “Yes, ma’am. And you know they’re kinda hard to burn. Anyways, she was a kneelin’ by the fireplace an’ the picture was smokin’ like everything.”