Now, on the very day when love had left me in a way so very far from being imperceptible, here was this reminder from that other, forgotten young man, that went on:
"Plenty of things have happened since we said good-bye; but I've often wondered what became of the pretty kid with the thick brown pigtail. You'd a blue bow on it that day, and you never noticed that I walked off with that. I suppose there's just an off-chance that you are not married yet. Are you? If you aren't, would you care to marry me?"
I gasped as I came to this. Who wouldn't have been petrified?
"Would you care to marry me?"
But how—how fantastic! At breakfast-time upon this very day I'd had conveyed to me the devastating news that the one young man on whom my thoughts had hung wished to see no more of me. Now, at midday, here was shock No. 2. Another young man, of whom I hadn't thought since I was grown up, was actually proposing to me.
Both on one day!
Was I living in some wild dream of coincidences? But no. The Harry-wound went on aching steadily beyond this flash in the pan even as I read on.
"It sounds mad, I know."
The writer actually admitted it.
"I'd explain details and things better if I saw you. May I come and see you? If so, please write to me here, where I shall be for the next ten days. I could get over to your father's place. This needn't commit you to anything. But if it is all off, don't write. If I don't hear from you within a week I shall know it was good-bye for good.—Yours, RICHARD WYNN."