A few days later, a depressed Harold gets a letter from the publisher, but just rips it up without opening it, assuming that it is a rejection notice. Fortunately, his uncle notices that one of the paper-scraps is part of an advance royalty check for $3,000; the accompanying letter states that the book will be published as a comedy. At first, Harold is outraged, but then he realizes that his having this large cash-sum means that he can propose to Mary after all. However, when he sees a newspaper headline announcing Mary and Ronald's wedding that same day at her family's estate, he gives up. By chance, the same woman whom Ronald had met a few days earlier walks in and, seeing the newspaper story, tearfully exclaims that she is Ronald's wife. As proof, she shows Harold a locket with the couple's wedding portrait and the engraved words "to my wife" that Ronald had given her two years earlier. (It is never revealed why the wealthy Ronald had married a working-class woman, but it was likely simple greed --- perhaps this lady was the beneficiary of a sizeable life-insurance policy or upcoming inheritance, and so Ronald had secretly married the lady in hopes of accessing her future fortune. Ronald had not informed his family about his marriage to this currently-of-modest-income lady lest they would disapprove; he may also have told his new wife not to let anyone know of their marriage, either, fearing that the lady's benefactor would exclude her from his will if he learned that she now had a rich husband who could provide for her. After meeting the super-affluent Buckingham family and being accepted by Mary's parents as a prospective son-in-law, however, Ronald had simply ceased contact with his wife, knowing that her inheritance would be a paltry sum compared to what Mary would receive.)