"We are almost home," she said.
"Yes, there! Our light is flashing out. Marjorie is lighting the parlor
lamp. I have in my pocket a letter from Jerome; I have had it a week; you
seemed so quiet and happy I had not the heart to disturb you. It was sent
to the old address, I told him some one there would always find me. He
has not written because he thought we did not care to hear. He has the
name of an honest man there, he says."
"Is that all?" she questioned, her heart beating with a rapid pulsation.
How long she had waited for this.
"He is not in Europe now, he is in California. His wife is dead and he
has a little girl ten years old. He refers to a letter written twelve
years ago--a letter that I never received; but it would have made no
difference if I had received it. I wrote to him once begging him to
release me from a promise that I made rashly out of great pity for him,
it was cruel and selfish in him to force me to it, but I was not sure of
myself then, and it was all that I could do for him. But, as I said, he
released me when he chose to do it, and it does not matter. Perhaps it is
better that I had the promise to bind me; you are happier for it, I
think, and I have not been selfish in any demand upon you."
"John, I don't know what you mean," she said, perplexed.
"I don't mean anything that I can tell you."
"I hope he did not deceive her--his wife, that he told her all about
himself."
"She died nine years ago, he writes, and now he is very ill himself and
wishes to leave his little daughter in safe hands; her mother was an
orphan, it seems, and the child has no relatives that he cares to leave
her with; her mother was an English girl, he was married in England.
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