“Always,” said Dolly. “Indeed, I never had to write to him before to bring him. He always came without being written to. There never was any one like him for being tender and penitent. You always said so, Aimée. And just think how often I have tried his patience! I sometimes wish I could help doing things,—flirting, you know, and making a joke of it. He never flirted in his life, poor darling, and what right had I to do it? When he comes to-morrow I will tell him how sorry I am for everything, and I will promise to be better. I have not been half so good as he has. I wish I had. I should not have hurt him so often if I had.”
“You have been a little thoughtless sometimes,” said Aimée. “Perhaps it would have been better if you could have helped it.”
“A little thoughtless,” said Dolly, restlessly. “I have been wickedly thoughtless sometimes. And I have made so many resolutions and broken them all. And I ought to have been doubly thoughtful, because he had so much to bear. If he had been prosperous and happy it would not have mattered half so much. But it was all my vanity. You don't know how vain I am, Aimée. I quite hate myself when I think of it. It is the wanting people to admire me,—everybody, men and women, and even children,—particularly among Lady Augusta's set, where there is a sort of fun in it. And then I flirt before I know; and then, of course, Grif cannot help seeing it. I wonder that he has borne with me so long.”
She was quite feverish in her anxiety to condemn herself and exculpate her lover. She did not droop her face against the pillow, but roused herself, turning toward Aimée, and talking fast and eagerly. A bright spot of color came out on either cheek, though for the rest she was pale enough. But to Aimée's far-seeing eyes there was something so forced and unnaturally strung in her sudden change of mood that she felt a touch of dread Suppose something should crush her newly formed hopes,—something terrible and unforeseen! She felt a chill strike her to the heart at the mere thought of such a possibility. She knew Dolly better than the rest of them did,—knew her highly strung temperament, and feared it, too. She might be spirited and audacious and thoughtless, but a blow coming through Grif would crush her to the earth.
“You—you mustn't set your heart too much upon his getting the letter in the morning, Dolly,” she said. “He might be away when it came, or—or twenty things, and he might not see it until night, but—”
“Well,” said Dolly, “I will write it at once if you will give me the pen and ink. The earlier it is posted the earlier he will get it.”
She tried to rise then; but when she stood up her strength seemed to fail her, and she staggered and caught at Aimee's arm. But the next minute she laughed.
“How queer that one little faint should make me so weak!” she said. “I am weak,—actually. I shall feel right enough when I sit down, though.”
She sat down at the table with her writing materials, and Aimée remained upon the sofa watching her. Her hand trembled when she wrote the first few lines, but she seemed to become steadier afterward, and her pen dashed over the paper without a pause for a few minutes. The spot of color on her cheeks faded and burned by turns,—sometimes it was gone, and again it was scarlet, and before the second page was finished tears were falling soft and fast. Once she even stopped to wipe them away, because they blinded her; but when she closed the envelope she did not look exactly unhappy, though her whole face was tremulous.
“He will come back,” she said, softly. “He will come back when he reads this, I know. I wish it was to-morrow. To-morrow night he will be here, and we shall have our happy evening after all. I can excuse myself to Miss MacDowlas for another day.”