"I shall know when I read the letter," replied Mary quietly.
"I wonder how you can manage to wait till then," said Jane.
"I don't suppose it's very important," said Hannah, and Jane laughed, but Fanny could bear it no longer. None of them knew what she knew. She left the room.
II
Alone to her room, Mary brought her letter. That room had become the chapel of her most sacred thoughts. There, in that house, she was alone. There, as though it were the very script of her faith, she brought her letter and, locking the door, took it across to her chair by the window and sat down.
There was something she needed in this message from him. Courage had not failed her. No pricks of conscience fretted her peace of mind. More it was that in the conventional outlook of that house, in the atmosphere indeed of all Bridnorth, she felt set aside. Nor did she fear to be thus separated. Only it was at moments that it was chill. At times she shivered as though the cold edge of a draught through unsuspected chinks had found her out and for the moment set back the temperature of her courage.
Merely momentary were these misgivings. With a shaking of her shoulders, she could dispel them. The touch of his hand across that distance which separated them, the sound of his voice, all to be contained in her letter, these would drive them utterly away.
Alone there in that house, she needed her letter and her fingers were warm and her heart was beating with a quiet assurance as she tore open the envelope.
"Mary--" it began. She liked that. Her heart answered to it. It was not the passionate embrace she sought; rather it was the firm touch of a hand in her own. This simple use of her name fully gave it her.
"Mary--I have been wanting to write to you, my dear, ever since I came home. I even tried in the train coming back when, not only my hand on the paper, but it seemed my mind as well, were so jolted about that I gave it up as a bad job.