And the smile remained upon his face for at least ten seconds--at all events until he had drawn his paper before him and begun to write. His task was soon completed. The letter written, he folded it, placed it in its envelope and directed it, looking as immovable as ever, and yet conscious of being inwardly more moved than he had ever been before. "Perhaps," he said, half-aloud, "_this_ is the time, and it is well I waited." And then he turned to the letters and papers awaiting him. The papers he merely glanced over and laid aside; the letters he opened and read. There were four of them, three of them business epistles, soon disposed of; the sight of the handwriting upon the fourth made his heart bound suddenly,--it was the clear, space-saving calligraphy of Professor Herrick, who labelled his envelopes as economically as if they had been entomological specimens. "It's curious that it should have come now," Tredennis said, as he tore it open. It was a characteristic letter, written, it appeared, with the object of convincing Tredennis that he had been guilty of a slight error in one of his statements concerning the sign-language of a certain tribe. It devoted five pages of closely-written paper to proofs and researches into the subject, and scientific reasons for the truth of all assertions made. It was clear, and by no means uninteresting. The professor never was uninteresting, and he was generally correct. Tredennis read his arguments carefully and with respect, even with an occasional thrill, as he remembered how his communications usually terminated. But this was an exception to the general rule. At the bottom of the fifth page he signed himself, "Your sincere friend, Nathan Herrick." And he had said nothing about Bertha. "Not a word," said Tredennis. "He never did so before. What does it mean? Not a word!" And he had scarcely finished speaking before he saw that on the back of the last page a postscript was written,--a brief one, three words, without comment, these: "Bertha is married." For a few moments Tredennis sat still and stared at them. The glass across the room reflected very little change in his face. The immovable look became a trifle more immovable, if anything. There was scarcely the stirring of a muscle. At length he moved slowly, folding the letter carefully and returning it to its envelope in exactly the folds it had lain in when he took it out. After that he rose and began to pace the floor with a slow and heavy tread. Once he stopped and spoke, looking down at the boards beneath his feet. "Bertha is married," he said, in a low, hard voice. And the clock beginning to strike at the moment, he listened until it ended its stroke of twelve, and then spoke again. "The New Year," he said; "and Bertha is married." And he walked to the table where his letter of application lay, and, taking it up, tore it in two and tossed it into the fire.