When he re-read the typed letter, one point struck him which had not so sharply pierced his intelligence before. The effect of the appeal from Barbara, the miracle of its coming, and the poignant obligation it thrust upon him had been too overpowering at first. He had not stopped, after breaking short his wild hope of her freedom, to dwell on the strangeness of one part of her letter above another. But now, in judging his own phrases, he came to a stop at a sentence towards the end of the page: “I trust this may be of some comfort to you.”
“Won’t that way of putting it sound conceited?” he asked himself. But no; she had used that very word “comfort” in her letter. As he remembered this, the thought suddenly woke in him that she had written as a woman might write who was in deep sorrow. Yet she could not be in deep sorrow. She had her heart’s desire, and at worst, her feeling for the man who was gone—John Denin—could only be a mild, impersonal grief that his life had to be the price of her happy love.
He had longed, in writing the story of “The War Wedding,” to show Barbara why even that mild grief was not needed, because in giving great joy to another soul a woman earned the right to her own happiness. Denin could not bear to think that pity for him might shadow Barbara’s sunshine, but he had not dreamed until to-day that the shadow could be dark. Now, the more intently he studied her appeal to the author of the book, the more difficult he found it to understand her state of mind.
Barbara spoke of herself as one of the many women whose “sore hearts” ached for healing because they were losing their “dearest” in battle. And she said that, if he could give her the assurance she asked for, the story of “The War Wedding” would seem to hold a personal message, making her “future life bearable.”
What a generous and sensitive nature she had, and what beautiful loyalty, to mourn sincerely for a man she had never loved, but to whom she owed a few material advantages! It was wonderful of the girl, and he worshiped her for it. His sacrifice for her was easier because of this warm sense of her gratitude, and he kissed the paper he had just written on for her, because some day it would be touched by her hands.
“If I only dared to say more to comfort her, and beg her to be happy!” he thought. But the one safe way had been to make his answer to her calmly impersonal, perhaps even a little cold. For fear he might be seized with an irresistible desire to add something more, something from his heart instead of his head, Denin put the letter into an envelope and sealed it.
Then, however, he stumbled upon a new difficulty which had not occurred to him before. He was in the act of addressing her as “Lady Denin” (since she chose to keep his name), when his heart stood still in the face of a danger he had barely escaped.
How was a stranger like John Sanbourne to know that she was Lady Denin?
If, inadvertently, he had written the name thus, and sent the letter to the post, even so slight a thing might have made her guess the truth. Instead of comforting, he might have plunged her into humiliation and despair.
Barbara had not spoken of herself in the letter as being married. For all John Sanbourne was supposed to know, she might be a girl, mourning a brother or a lover. At last he addressed her as “Mrs. or Miss Denin, Gorston Old Hall.” And with several other letters which he forced himself to write, he enclosed the stamped envelope in a note to Eversedge Sibley. “Please post these in New York,” he begged. “I don’t care to have every one know where I live.”