“Dear Virginia: For some time past; in fact, since our hasty engagement, I have been searching the depths of my heart, to see if my love for you is genuine, and I am sorry to say that I have found the love I had rashly expressed is not deeply felt, and in spite of all my determination to think only of you, my heart would stray to another.
“Dear Virginia, I implore you to consider me a trifler, quite unworthy of the exalted love that is in your noble nature to bestow; and I beg of you to release me from our engagement, which, if insisted on being maintained, must result in a life of unhappiness for us both. Let us be to each other as brother and sister, and I shall ever bless you and pray for you.
“Joseph Corway.”
She did not tear the letter to shreds, nor stamp it under her feet. She stood with it in her hand, which slowly fell down by her side, while a look of sadness and of reminiscence stole into her eyes. And she commenced to experience, too, the greatest difficulty in restraining a dewy profuseness that would arise and cloud her sight. She had thought that her heart was steeled against any expression of tenderness for him that might assail it, but she discovered that she was still a young girl with a girl’s emotions, impossible of subjection.
An overpowering desire to be alone until she could master her emotion and clear away the mist from her eyes caused her to descend the steps. The sense of motion steadied her, and it enabled her to think and to say unconsciously, half aloud to herself, “If father had burst his cerements and arisen from his grave to tell me this, I should have refused to believe him,” and with the thought of what Constance had suffered, a moan unconsciously escaped her.
Here, then, was the key to Virginia’s transformation. This delayed letter—cruel, it was true—was addressed to her at the farm three days before her sudden return home, and had as slowly followed her, for rural postal facilities were at that time dependent on the farmer going to town for his mail.
Hazel heard the moan, and looked up from the note which she had read and re-read, and kissed time and again. She saw Virginia in apparent pain, and at once flew down the steps, crying, “Oh, Virginia, dear! What has caused you so much grief?” and she sought to caress her.
But Virginia, with an effort subduing her emotions, drew away, answering, “Nothing, dear, nothing; it’s all past, all gone now!”
Sam came up just then. He cast a swift glance at her distressed face, and then to the letter which she held in her hand, and surmised that it had to do with her trouble. His first thought was, “Damn that messenger boy!” He, however, made no attempt to break in on her mood.
Virginia returned his look almost defiantly at first, as though his questioning glance was rude, but the little cloud quickly vanished, when Hazel said, “Something serious, dear? Won’t you let me share your trouble?”