She would try to be so admirable that he would admire her, so true that he would trust her, and so fascinating that he would woo her with a devotion that would leave no chance for "equanimity" were it possible for him to fail.

If in her desperate weakness, in the chaos of her first self-knowledge, she could hide her secret, she smiled at the possibility of revealing it now that she had been schooled and trained into strength and self-control.
In her brief letter of reply to Graydon she wrote: "That I still exist and shall continue to live is proved by my one trait which you regard as encouraging--curiosity.

Please send me some books that will tell me about Europe, or, rather, will present Europe as nearly as possible in its real aspect.

I may never travel, but am foolish enough to imagine that I can see the world from the standpoint of this sleepy old town." "Poor little wraith!" said Graydon, as he read the words.

"What a queer, shadowy world her fancy will create, even from the most realistic descriptions I can send her!" But he good-naturedly made up a large bundle of books, in which fiction predominated, for he believed that she would read nothing else.
The days gilded on, autumn merged into winter, and strangers came again.