However, at last Lady Braithwaite carried her point; and he agreed to go away for a fortnight to some relatives of hers in Leicestershire—no very great hardship, in truth, as the hunting-season was not yet over.
So one morning, before Annie was awake, he stole into her room with elaborately clumsy movements expressive of his intention not to make the least noise, all ready for his journey, except that he was without his boots—he had left them outside the door for fear of their creaking. He stood looking at her wistfully for a few minutes, and then crept close to the bed and softly kissed her. She did not move or wake. Then he took out of his pocket a letter, directed, rather quaintly, to “Mrs. Harold Braithwaite, Garstone Grange, Lancashire.” He had first written outside it simply, “Annie;” but then it had occurred to him that the dignity of the offended husband required the full title. This letter he tucked gently under her shoulder, as he did not want anybody else to see it. Then, with another kiss and the murmur, “She doesn’t deserve it—I’m blessed if she does!” he left the room.
When he got outside the door, he hesitated a moment.
“Wonder if it would hurt her to wake her? She might just say good-bye. Oh, well, it is only for a fortnight!” and he put on his boots and went down-stairs.
Only a fortnight—so he thought!
When Annie woke that morning, she found the letter. It was badly written, strangely spelled, not punctuated at all, an authentic uninspired document evidently:
“My dear Annie,—I ought not to have to write to you at all as a husband ought to see his wife whenever he likes and she ought to think it a compliment but you are ill though I believe you are nearly well now and I say no more. You don’t know how sorry I am about it all or you would be kinder for I can not ride or sleep or do anything hardly for thinking of you. Then all say I am silly to go on like this just for a woman and I dare say they are right in the abstrackt but they don’t know how much a man feels this sort of tretment until they are married themselves which I hope they won’t be till they are older than you and me for a man should not marry until five-and-twenty I am sure of that now. I do not say that to reproach you for it was not your fault, and it is nearly as bad for you as for me and it will all be different in a fortnight when I come back for I will be very gentle and kind to you and I want you to promise that you won’t say any more about it nor throw it in my face afterward when you are angry with me and that you won’t always be so dredfully quiet before people as if you were afraid of me. I know I am not good enough for you and everybody is always telling me so and it is not at all a pleasant thing for a fellow and I think if you were a little less good it would be better. I would as soon you gave me a slap in the face than obey me in the way you do like a statue or a martyr which you are not. Don’t think I want to say hard things to you for everybody will tell you how wretched I have been and I will say a lot more to you when I see you but now as the dog-cart is round and I have not had my breakfast I will say good-by and if you are not awake I will put it under your pillow. Your affectionate husband,
“Harry.”
As Annie read this letter, it struck her for the first time that she had not appreciated the extreme youthfulness of her husband, who was much younger at twenty than she was on the eve of being nineteen. The letter, in its boyish simplicity, amused and touched her; however, it did not alter, but rather strengthened, a resolution which she had been busily forming and developing during those quiet weeks of illness.
On the day following Harry’s departure for Leicestershire she was led down-stairs, being strong enough to walk now, and enthroned in the drawing-room as a special pet and sovereign. She was rather shy with George at first; but he knew how to be so quietly kind as to put her at her ease. William danced wild hornpipes of joy round her, until they threatened to turn him out for being noisy, upon which he instantly subsided, and fell into the opposite extreme of speaking only in a thick whisper. All the rest were kind, Lilian rather ashamed of herself, but grateful to Annie for not having mentioned her name to indiscreet Harry on that eventful Christmas night.