Dick was in favor of sticking it out. He thought Lewis madder, if anything, than Lewis thought him, which had the advantage of evening things up between them.... And then, halfway down the hill, Dick was struck by an idea. Was Lewis himself in love with Petra? Could anything be more probable? Petra was utterly beautiful. Propinquity too, and all that!... But why hadn’t Clare seen this possibility? Suppose she had seen it—. Was that the reason why she had been so insistent on Dick’s telling Lewis the whole situation? So that Lewis would be forewarned? But why would not Clare consider marriage between Petra and Doctor Pryne a very good marriage indeed? Clare wanted the very best for Petra, Dick never doubted that. Did Clare think, perhaps, that Petra could never be happy without a great deal of money? Well, Petra probably couldn’t, and Dick, not Lewis, had the money. Petra was mad about clothes, lovely clothes. She dressed more interestingly than any girl he knew. Pretty big of Clare, with her own indifference to luxury and clothes, to consider Petra’s different temperament, and have such long, wise thoughts for the girl’s future.

But Lewis was such a grand person! Quite aside from his fame, his personality was head and shoulders above any other man Dick knew,—even Lowell Farwell’s. Oughtn’t that personality to make up for Lewis’ comparative poverty, even to Petra’s rather shallow young view? Dick, in all humility, should think that it would and that in a choice between them any girl would choose Lewis, not himself.... But Clare understood Petra better, it seemed. It was clever of her not to have told him that Lewis might be his rival for Petra, but instead to send them off down here together, where Dick could find it out for himself. But put yourself in Lewis’ place. If you were in love with a girl, and a friend came to you and told you he was not in love with this same girl but wanted to marry her all the same,—how would you feel? Pretty furious! Just the way Lewis had acted! Dick wondered that Clare hadn’t had as much imagination for Lewis’ feelings, as she had had for Dick’s own, and Petra’s. Well, Clare loved him and Petra; and Lewis, after all, was only a respected acquaintance. That explained it. But it was tough on Lewis, all the same.

As they reached and crossed the wide trail toward Jordan Pond, Dick felt a new emotion coming to life and ascending in his heart—like a skyrocket. Elation! To win Petra from a fellow like Lewis! To imagine Petra desired—and by such a man—had had the effect of making her suddenly more desirable to himself. He would tell this phenomenon to Clare, when he got back, quite frankly. You could tell Clare anything. Her detachment was an exquisite, a consoling thing. If he told her that Petra, he felt, might in time come to take Clare’s own place with him, Clare would even then keep her dear, generous detachment. But of course, Dick could never have any such nonsense as that to tell Clare. No matter how fond he ever became of his beautiful wife, Clare would remain as long as he lived, his—his most beloved.

Abruptly, Lewis interrupted these forecastings. “See here, Dick, I’m sorry I got so hot. But let’s make a bargain. Don’t you mention Green Doors again or anybody in it as long as we are together on this holiday, and I’ll go back now and play golf with you instead of hiking. It’s what you want, I know, and you were merely being altruistic.... The idea of going on walking, anyway, doesn’t appeal to me.”

“Really?”

“Really! We can swing around to Asticou Inn and go back for our clubs, can’t we?”

They could and they did. But Dick did not know what Clare would think of the bargain he had struck with Lewis. She had expected the two to talk endlessly, to hash everything over.... Or what had she expected after all? Dick was no longer so certain. Well, he had only to get back to Clare, look in her candid, sweet eyes, to lose this sudden new sense of confusion about what her motives in getting him to confide in Lewis might be. She could and would explain to Dick’s complete enlightenment and satisfaction. She always did.

That evening Dick left Lewis reading Agatha Christie’s last detective novel by an open fire and walked into Northeast Harbor alone for their mail. If Clare had written him yesterday, as she had half promised to do, the letter would come to-night. All through the long hours on the misty golf course and ever since, this expectation of a letter coming to-night had been a steady undertow to all that went on in Dick’s mind. The entire day had been for him nothing in the world but a straight path to the letter window of Northeast Harbor’s little post office. The mail was sorted by eight-thirty, he knew, and sometimes a trifle earlier. But, taking hold on all the strength of character he possessed, Dick had determined not to arrive at that window of dreams one minute before the certain time of half-past eight. He knew how painful it would be to stand around waiting, watching the mail being sorted and not absolutely certain of his letter. Now, as he came down the village street through the drizzling fog, he saw that the cars parked near the post office were starting up their engines and that people with letters and papers in their hands were coming from the post-office door. And he walked faster. Whether the thick thugging tom-tom his heart had set up was delight or anguish, he did not consider.

The window gained, and Dick’s turn in the writing queue at last arrived, he snatched the little bundle of letters from the smiling postmistress with a muttered, blind “good evening” and turned with it to the counter. His fingers, shuffling the letters through as he looked for Clare’s hand, were shaking. There were half a dozen letters for Doctor Pryne readdressed in Petra’s script. But there was nothing for himself. Nothing that counted. Petra had written him, it seemed. A letter in a fat envelope. But he was so dulled by disappointment that he hardly bothered to wonder why she had written or what.

He stuffed the whole bunch into his pocket and returned to the delivery window. “Are you sure there’s nothing else for Richard Wilder?” he asked. It was a childish act, he knew, but he could not seem to help himself. Obligingly, the, to Dick, faceless automaton at that fateful window turned back to the letter boxes. She even thrust a hand up into the Wilders’ now grimly empty pigeonhole, pretending to make certain of what was already a certainty. The look on the man’s face asking the unreasonable question made the gesture, empty as it was, a human necessity. She came back to her window. “Nothing now.” The young woman spoke tentatively, averting kindly eyes. “In the morning’s mail perhaps.”

Out in the fog again Dick had to laugh at himself. Why did he need a letter so? They trusted each other, he and Clare. What did passionate friendship mean if not trust and peace, even in separation! Besides, it was scarcely sixty hours since they had parted. And he would see her in thirty-six more. Lewis and he had decided to cut their holiday short and return to-morrow, after all. They gave the weather as their excuse to each other, but not to the Langleys. It was agreed that the doctor to-night was to receive an important letter which made their dashing off necessary. The fact was that ever since Dick had begun to suspect Lewis’ feeling for Petra, a constraint had settled between them which made their close companionship just now more of a strain than a relaxation. So day after to-morrow Dick would be out at Green Doors again. It was unworthy of Clare’s beautiful friendship that he should feel actual written words from her, which he could keep in his pocket and touch, a necessity to his sense of assurance of that friendship. It was unworthy and faithless in him. But letters were uncanny things! Wanting one so terribly was uncanny too....

Lewis glanced up at Dick welcomingly as he came in. The detective story had returned him to a healthy, intellectual mood. He was accustomed to find this type of reading as effective as a good game of contract or chess for keeping one sensible.

“This Christie is O.K., Dick,” he said. “You must read it yourself. It’s as good as anything she has done. I’ll be through in half an hour or so and you can have it.”

“Good! I picked up a new Dorothy Sayers as I came along, at Blaine’s drug store. You can have that to finish the night with. Here’s your mail.”

Dick had dropped the little pile of letters onto the arm of Lewis’ chair, and pulling another chair up to the hearth, he sprawled himself into it, eyes moodily on the fire.

Petra’s fat letter to Dick was on the top of the pile. In his disappointment at not hearing from Clare, Dick had completely forgotten he had any letter at all. Lewis picked it up, turned it around in his fingers, looked at Dick. But Dick was bent forward, poking the fire. He jumped when Lewis spoke.

“This seems to be yours.”

“Oh, sure! I forgot it. Toss it across, will you. It’s a fat one. Funny!”

Putting down the tongs and leaning back in his chair, Dick tore the flap open with his thumb, and twisting around to get a better light on the sheets, began lazily reading Petra’s long letter. Lewis made no pretense of returning to his detective story or of looking over his own mail. Petra’s handwriting on the envelopes in his little pile that remained stared up at him ironically. This was as much as he had of her, or ever would have, he felt. Her hand readdressing somebody else’s letter to him. Petra’s handwriting was stirring—and Lewis believed it would be stirring to him even if he did not know and love and desire Petra as he did. The characters were consistently round, dear, black and perfectly spaced. The writer of such a script was scrupulous—exquisitely scrupulous—not to waste one instant of the recipient’s time or energy. It was like Petra’s own perfect manners, visible in black and white. But how arid to be sitting here, studying and appreciating the nuances of Petra’s agreeable manners, while Dick was reading her heart; for Dick had lost his indifferent, lounging attitude when he began to read Petra’s long letter, and his profile—all that Lewis could see of his face—was tense and excited.

Lewis got up hastily, leaving his letters where they were on the arm of the chair, and went out onto the piazza. The fog sucked up to him, enveloped him. He coughed, choked sharply. These Mount Desert fogs were like no others in the world, he thought, and for once, it occurred to him that he ought to possess himself of an automatic cigarette lighter: you couldn’t strike a match successfully out here in this insidious fog. But cigarette or not, he would not return to the warm fire-cheered room until Dick had done with that letter and put it away out of sight.

What would Dick do with the sheets when he had finished them, anyway? Lewis visualized him tossing them casually into the fire. Then he visualized himself putting his own bare hand into the fire and pulling them out! “Am I crazy?” he wondered. “What is there in her mere handwriting that stirs me more than the sight of Petra herself? It is the essence of her personality—as the voice is—only visible.” If Petra should ever write himself a letter—if such a day ever came—Lewis felt now that her handwriting on the envelope would produce as profound a feeling in him as would her first kiss. He coughed again. The fog hated him. Then Dick came to the door, shouting “Lewis! Oh, Lewis!”