“Your sincere friend,
“George Brant.”
He read it over when it was written, and made as if he would tear it up. Certainly it was anything but loverlike in its measured coolness and conventional formality. He laid it aside and tried again:
“My Loved One:
“May I write as I should if Mr. Crosswell had not come in upon us the day before yesterday? If I may—if your own heart says I may—I shall not need to tell you how glad your note makes me; what a joy it is to have you turn to me in any time of need. Be very sure, my dear one, that I shall run to do your bidding. There will be difficulties in the way this time—difficulties which did not exist before. An old enemy of mine has prejudiced your brother against me. But if the obstacles were ten times as many I should overcome them for your dear sake.
“Your note found me when I was in the depths of despair, and while it has comforted me by giving me something to do for you, the future is still very dark, and I know not what it holds for me. But this I do know: that if your love may shine for me as a light in great darkness, I shall have strength to keep from turning back; nay, courage and strength to go forward, if only you will stand at the end of the snare-beset way and beckon me.
“Let me have a line from you again in the morning if William has not returned.
“Faithfully and lovingly——”
He paused at the signature, and read and reread the two replies. And, after all, it was the formal note that a district messenger was presently bearing awheel to the transplanted Southern mansion in the Highlands, and the love letter lay torn into tiny fragments in Colonel Bowran’s wastebasket.
The answer to Dorothy’s note despatched, Brant began to cast about for ways and means to the end she besought. As he had intimated in the letter which was not sent, there were difficulties. Harding had doubtless sown the seed of prejudice and ill will, harrowing it well in; in which case young Langford, when found, would have nothing to do with the man against whom he had been warned. Brant gave the difficulty a thoughtful half hour, at the end of which he sought Antrim. The chief clerk was just closing his office to go to supper, and he was glad enough to have company.
“What are you going to do with yourself to-night, Harry?” Brant asked, when they were free of the downtown six-o’clock sidewalk throngs.