The words came glib to his lips. She stared at him in amazement. "You did—you say you wrote to me?" she asked him, deeply moved.
"Wrote? I wrote a dozen times. And I never received a word—except from Jules Nathan."
"But Jules Nathan—Jules Nathan is dead!"
"He is?" But Harold's surprise was feigned. This was one piece of news that had trickled through the wastes to him,—of the death of Jules Nathan, a man known to them both. It was safe to have heard from him. The contents of the letter could never be verified. "He told me—after I'd written many times, and never got an answer—that you were engaged to be married—to a Chicago man. I thought you'd forgotten me. I thought you'd been untrue."
Virginia held hard on her faculties and balanced his words. She had known Chicago men during the six years that she had moved in the most exalted social circles of her own city. The story held water, even if she had been inclined to doubt it. She knew it was always easy for an engagement rumor to start and be carried far, when a prominent girl was involved. "I didn't get your letters," she told him. "Are you sure you addressed them right——"
"I thought so——"
"And you didn't get mine——"
"No—not after the first few days. I changed my address—but I told you of the change in a letter. I never heard from you after that."
"Then it's all been a misunderstanding—a cruel mistake. And you thought I had forgotten——"
"I thought you'd married some one else. I couldn't believe it when Bill came to my cabin to-day and told me you were here—I've been trapping over toward the Yuga. And now—we're together at last."