Now, looking back upon it, it appears to her grossest treachery to the mother whose every thought she knows is hers, and who, in her foreign home, lives waiting, hoping, for the word that shall restore her to her arms.
A kind of anxiety to communicate with the injured one, and to pour out on paper the love she bears her, but dares not breathe at Herst, fills Marcia. So that when the house is silent on this Sunday afternoon,—when all the others have wandered into the open air,—she makes her way to the library, and, sitting down, commences one of the lengthy, secret, forbidden missives that always find their way to Italy, in spite of prying eyes and all the untold evils that so surely wait upon discovery.
To any one acquainted with Marcia, her manner of commencing her letter would be a revelation. To one so cold, so self-contained, the weaker symptoms of affection are disallowed; yet this is how she begins:
"My own Beloved,—As yet I have no good news to send you, and little that I can say,—though ever as I write to you my heart is full. The old man grows daily more wearisome, more detestable, more inhuman, yet shows no sign of death. He is even, as it seems to me, stronger and more full of life than when last I wrote to you, now three weeks ago. At times I feel dispirited, almost despairing, and wonder if the day will ever come when we two shall be reunited,—when I shall be able to welcome you to my English home, where, in spite of prejudices, you will be happy, because you will be with me."
Here, unluckily, because of the trembling of her fingers, a large spot of ink falls heavily from her pen upon the half-written page beneath, destroying it.
With an exclamation expressive of impatience, Marcia pushes the sheet to one side and hastily commences again upon another. This time she is more successful, and has reached almost the last word in her final tender message, when a footstep approaching disturbs her. Gathering up her papers, she quits the library by its second door, and, gaining her own room, finishes and seals her packet.
Not until then does she perceive that the blotted sheet is no longer in her possession,—that by some untoward accident she must have forgotten it behind her in her flight.
Consternation seizes her. Whose were the footsteps that broke in upon her quietude? Why had she not stood her ground? With a beating heart she runs down-stairs, enters the library once more with cautious steps, only to find it empty. But, search as she may, the missing paper is not to be found.
What if it has fallen into her grandfather's keeping! A cold horror falls upon her. After all these weary years of hated servitude to be undone! It is impossible even fickle fortune should play her such a deadly trick!
Yet the horror continues until she finds herself again face to face with her grandfather. He is more than usually gracious,—indeed, almost marked in his attentions to her,—and once more Marcia breathes freely. No; probably the paper was destroyed; even she herself in a fit of abstraction may have torn it up before leaving the library.