"Then send it without."
"But I should like you to see what I have said. You know about things, and if it is too much or too little, you can tell me." Then he read her letter, which ran as follows.
Dear Mr. Twentyman,
Perhaps you have heard that we are to be married on Thursday, May 6th. I do so wish that you would come. It would make me so much happier on that day. We shall be very quiet; and if you would come to the house at eleven you could go across the park with them all to the church. I am to be taken in a carriage because of my finery. Then there will be a little breakfast. Papa and mamma and Dolly and Kate would be so glad;—and so would Mr. Morton. But none of them will be half so glad as your old, old, affectionate friend
Mary Masters.
"If that don't fetch him," said Reginald, "he is a poorer creature than I take him to be."
"But I may send it?"
"Certainly you may send it." And so the letter was sent across to Chowton Farm.
But the letter did not "fetch" him; nor am I prepared to agree with Mr. Morton that he was a poor creature for not being "fetched." There are things which the heart of a man should bear without whimpering, but which it cannot bear in public with that appearance of stoical indifference which the manliness of a man is supposed to require. Were he to go, should he be jovial before the wedding party or should he be sober and saturnine? Should he appear to have forgotten his love, or should he go about lovelorn among the wedding guests? It was impossible,—at any rate impossible as yet,—that he should fall into that state of almost brotherly regard which it was so natural that she should desire. But as he had determined to forgive her, he went across that afternoon to the house and was the bearer of his own answer. He asked Mrs. Hopkins who came to the door whether she were alone, and was then shown into an empty room where he waited for her. She came to him as quickly as she could, leaving Lady Ushant in the middle of the page she was reading, and feeling as she tripped downstairs that the colour was rushing to her face. "You will come, Larry," she said.
"No, Miss Masters."
"Let me be Mary till I am Mrs. Morton," she said, trying to smile. "I was always Mary." And then she burst into tears. "Why,—why won't you come?"
"I should only stalk about like a ghost. I couldn't be merry as a man should be at a wedding. I don't see how a man is to do such a thing." She looked up into his face imploring him,—not to come, for that she felt now to be impossible,—but imploring him to express in some way forgiveness of the sin she had committed against him. "But I shall think of you and shall wish you well."