The poor girl was so utterly exhausted that she had fallen asleep, her face hidden on her arm, her elbows on the kitchen table; and her attitude of utter helplessness touched Joyce.
"Be kind to her," she said; "she is very unhappy. Be kind to her, Sarah. I know you will be kind to her as I wish it."
Then Joyce ran to her room and took the letter from her pocket.
The evening was closing in fast, but kneeling on the window-seat, she opened the lattice, and all the daylight yet lingering in the west fell upon the clearly written page of Bath post paper.
The letter was dated: "Sion Hill, Clifton, near Bristol," and began:
"If I have delayed sending you an expression of my sympathy in your trouble, dear Miss Falconer, it has been that I feared to intrude upon you in your grief, and feared, too, that I should touch it with too rough a hand. But I remember your parting words, your kind promise not to forget me. Thus I venture to tell you that I bear you ever in my mind, and that the time may come, will come, when I shall beg you to hear more from me than I can say now, and grant me a very earnest petition. But not now would I speak of myself or of my hopes and fears. Rather would I tell you how I pray God to comfort you for the loss of a father, whom I count it an honour to have known. I would ask you to believe that I, who have had the privilege of watching the happy home-life—now, alas! so sadly broken up—can, at least, understand what the wreck must be. Please present my regards and sympathy to Mrs. Falconer, and assure her of my remembrance of her kindness to me while her guest at Fair Acres, if indeed you think I may venture so far.
"I remain, dear Miss Falconer,
"Your very faithful and true"Gilbert DeCourcy Arundel."
There was a postscript written on the blank part of the sheet of Bath post, which was folded over.
"My mother is likely to visit the Palace, at Wells, in November. I have charged her, if possible, to see you at Fair Acres. I have heard nothing from your brother, but I am well satisfied that he is out of England, for reasons which you know.—G. DeC. A."
The reserved style of this letter, so different from the random shots of the present day, when young men and maidens seem to think the form of a telegram the most appropriate way of expressing their thoughts, may provoke a smile, and be pronounced priggish and formal. But in Joyce's eyes it was a perfect letter, and she felt it to be a support and comfort to her in her loneliness. Words which come from the heart seldom miss their aim; and Joyce felt that, underlying those carefully written lines, there was the certainty that if her promise to him was fulfilled, and that she thought, even in her sorrow, of him continually, he, on his part, did not forget her.
In the simplicity of her young heart, she had never dreamed that Gilbert could really care for her, and his long silence had made her think of him only as of someone who had passed out of her life, and was to be in future but a memory. Now the fluttering hope became almost a certainty, and she repeated to herself many times that evening, as a bird repeats its song over and over with the same rapture of content—