"Thank you."
Then Veronica came, swinging her bonnet. "The Sagamore has arrived, and I am going to stand on the wharf to count the sailors, and learn if they have all come home. Will you go, Ben?"
He complied, and I was left alone.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
When Ben left Surrey, I sent no message or letter by him, and he asked for none. But at once I wrote to Desmond, and did not finish my letter till after midnight. Intoxicated with the liberty my pen offered me, I roamed over a wide field of paper. The next morning I burnt it. But there was something to be said to him before his departure, and again I wrote. I might have condensed still more. In this way—
VESTIGIA RETRORSUM.
CHARLES MORGESON.
When the answer came I reflected before I read it, that it might be the last link of the chain between us. Not a bright one at the best, nor garlanded with flowers, nor was it metal, silver, or gold. There was rust on it, it was corroded, for it was forged out of his and my substance.
I read it: "I am yours, as I have been, since the night I asked you 'How came those scars?' Did you guess that I read your story? I go from you with one idea; I love you, and I must go. Brave woman! you have shamed me to death almost."
He sent me a watch. I was to wear it from the second of July. It was small and plain, but there were a few words scratched inside the case with the point of a knife, which I read every day. Veronica's eye fell on it the first time I put it on.