As for the school, that was easily arranged. A little discreet wire pulling and Esther was once more established as school mistress of District Number Fifteen. People shook their heads, but by the time of the first snowstorm they had ceased to prophesy nervous prostration, and by the time sleighing was fairly established they were ready to admit that the girl had acted sensibly after all.
No one guessed that there was another reason for Esther's refusal to go away. It was a simple reason and had to do with the fact that in Coombe the mails were sure and regular. Travellers miss letters and strange addresses are uncertain at best, but in Coombe there was small chance of any untoward accident befalling a certain weekly letter in the handwriting of Professor Willits. Esther lived upon these letters. Brief and dry though they were, they formed the motive power of her life and indeed it was from one of them that she had received the impetus which roused her from her first trance of grief and horror.
"My dear young lady (Willits had written).
"I believe that there are times when the truth is a good thing. It might be tactful to pretend that I do not know the real reason of Calendar's collapse but it would also be foolish. I think he is going to pull through. Now the question is--how about you? Are you going to be able to do your part?
"Let me be more explicit. It may be a long time before our friend is thoroughly re-established in health but it is quite probable that he will be well enough, and determined enough, to face some of his problems in the spring. He will turn to you. Are you going to be able to help him? When he comes to you will he find a silly, nervous girl, all horrors and regrets and useless might-have-beens or will he find you strong and sane, healthily poised, ready to face the future and let the dead past go? For the past is dead--believe me!
"You have seemed to me to be an excellently normal young person, but no doubt the shock and trouble of late events have done much to disturb your normality. Can you get it back? On the answer to that, depends Callandar's future. I shall keep you informed, weekly, of his progress."
Esther had thought deeply over this letter. Its brief, stern truth was exactly the tonic she needed. Like a strong hand it reached down into her direful pit of morbid musings, and, clinging to it, she struggled back into the sunlight. Above all and in spite of everything, she must not fail the man she loved!
