IN Myra's letter to Alice, and upon a page which Alice did not mention to David, was the question, "What's all this I hear about Dave and Fidelia separating? Is it so? And did it have anything to do with that Bolton man I heard about?"
Alice wrote to Myra the acknowledged facts of the matter, and stated that Fidelia's marriage to David had been annulled. Alice added, after much indecision, "I am seeing David now."
The return mail from Rock Island brought a reply which exclaimed, "Then it's struck! I always knew it would! She's finished for you. Oh, I'm so glad, Allie! . . . Now I can tell you something I wanted to before and which maybe you've suspected from my staying safe at home and not trying to get across somewhere to be nearer Lan. We're going to have a baby. It's the wonderfulest thing. . . ."
It thrilled Alice but it also frightened her to be treated by Myra, the wife, almost as a wife herself and no longer as a girl who could never hope for a child and who therefore must not be shown the joy of another's hope. How could Myra feel so sure that Fidelia "was finished" for Alice?
Fidelia's secret had proved to be as serious as Myra could have suspected; and it was true that Fidelia was gone away to be the wife of another man. But she
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