Alva made him welcome in the studio, where he spent more than half his time. The picture of Cupid, and the half-finished one of Maidenhood charmed him, and beguiled the long hours of waiting for Floy to be found. He was surprised one day to receive a letter from Maybelle Maury. She knew that he had come home at last, but she did not know that Floy had been hidden in his home all those weeks, so she hoped that the hapless girl had dropped out of all their lives forever. Perhaps she had committed suicide, after all? The very madness of love and longing drove Maybelle into a most unwomanly act. She fancied that by thrusting herself upon the young man’s notice she might reawaken in his heart the tenderness she had fancied was dawning there just before his meeting with Floy. She wrote a tender and pathetic letter, in which all her heart was revealed. “You are home at last,” she wrote. “Oh, how glad I am to know it! Need I tell you how cruelly I suffered when I heard that you were ill far, far across the sea? I longed for the wings of a bird to fly to you, and hover near you all unknown. Would I have been welcome if you had guessed I was there? Ah, St. George, once I believed I might be all in all to you, but a cloud came between us. It was the last day of the picnic, and I have never understood why you left us so strangely that night, with only a note of farewell. Why was it? Will you not explain now? Was it my fault? Did I offend you in any way? If I did, surely I have a right to ask in what way? For surely you knew how kindly I felt toward you. But I must not say too much. Surely you understand the feelings you awakened in my heart. Forgive me for writing, but I am so wretched! Otho says you were only flirting with me, but I can not believe it. Your dark eyes looked too earnest. But I implore you to write. Let me know the cruel truth if you really meant nothing by your words and looks. The certainty of despair is better than the cruelty of suspense. “MAYBELLE.” She thought she had written a very crafty letter, and that he could not have the hardihood to doom her to despair. He would believe that Floy was lost to him forever, and be willing to go back to the old fancy. At any rate, she knew that St. George was too honorable to betray her secret to the world. Whether he accepted her love or not, he would never reveal to any one that she had proffered it to him unsought. He did not belong to the low type of manhood that goes about with coat-pockets bulging with silly love letters from silly women, reading them aloud to whoever will listen, and boasting of his conquests among the fair sex. Such a contemptible poltroon makes a high-minded person exclaim with Shakespeare: “Oh, for a whip, To lash the rascal naked through the world!”