The letter lay on the top of the pile of mail on the old mahogany desk, a square envelope of thick parchment with high, dashing handwriting and faint, subtle fragrance.The man saw it the instant he entered the room. It gave him a sick dull thrust like an unexpected blow in the pit of his stomach. He had come back to the home of his childhood after hard years to rest, and here was this!

Grace Livingston Hill (April 16, 1865 1947) was an early 20th-century novelist and wrote both under her real name and the pseudonym Marcia Macdonald. She wrote over 100 novels and numerous short stories. Her characters were most often young female Christian women or those who become so within the confines of the story.