She looked at it closely, and saw in the brilliant moonshine that it
was sealed and stamped and addressed.
"I'll spoil it for mailing," she said.
"It doesn't matter," Harber told her ineptly. "Or you can write it
lightly, and I'll erase it later."
There was a little silence. Then suddenly she laughed softly, and
there was a tiny catch in the voice. "So that you can forget?" she
said bravely. "No! I'll write it fast and hard ... so that you can ...
never ... forget!"
And she gave him first his pencil and envelope, and afterward her
hand, which Harber held for a moment that seemed like an eternity
and then let go. She went into the house, but Harber didn't follow
her. He went off to his so-called hotel.
In his room, by the light of the kerosene-lamp, he took out the
envelope and reed what she had written. It was:
Vanessa Simola, Claridon, Michigan.
He turned over the envelope and looked at the address on the other
side, in his own handwriting:
Miss Janet Spencer, Tawnleytown....
And the envelope dropped from his nerveless fingers to the table.
Who shall say how love goes or comes? Its ways are a sacred,
insoluble mystery, no less. But it had gone for Harber: and just as
surely, though so suddenly, had it come! Yes, life had bitterly
tricked him at last.
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