He had been at home about two weeks, when her first letter came. So far the only scrap of her handwriting that he possessed was the formal release that she had given him the afternoon they became engaged, and which, for safe keeping doubtless, he always carried in his pocketbook, and which he sometimes found himself reading over--not as a proof that he could get out of his engagement, but rather in an attempt to verify the fact that he had ever got into it. However unfamiliar with her writing, he had not the least doubt about the letter from the first instant that he saw it. No one else could use such absurd faint blue and white paper and such large square envelopes. As he took it up, he said to himself that it had never occurred to him that she would write, and yet he saw without any sense of inconsistency that he had looked for this letter in every mail. And yet, so perverse is the nature of mankind, that he opened it, not with pleasure, but with a sudden return of all his old terror of being trapped. “Dear Max,” it said. “I have been pretending so often to write to you for the benefit of my inquiring friends, that I think I may as well do it as a tribute to truth. “How foolish that was--the night you went away! One gets carried away sometimes by the drama of a situation, without any relation to the facts, and the idea of parting forever from one’s fiancé is rather dramatic, isn’t it? I cried all night, and rather enjoyed it. Then in the morning when I woke up, everything seemed to have returned to the normal, and I could not understand what had made me so silly. “Don’t suppose that because you have gone, I am therefore freed from the disagreeable criticism of which you made such a speciality. Ned comes in almost every day to tell me that he does not approve of my conduct. I am not behaving, it appears, as an affianced bride should. Don’t you like to think of Ned so loyally protecting your interests in your absence? His criticisms are, I suppose, based on the attentions of a nice little boy just out of college, who calls me ‘Helen,’ and writes sonnets to me which are to appear in the most literary of weeklies. Look out for them. They are good, and may raise your low estimate of my charms. The best one begins: “When the blond wonder first on Paris dawned-- “Isn’t that pretty? “Write to me. At least send me a blank envelope that I may leave ostentatiously on my desk. “Yours at the moment, “CHRISTINE.”