[Illustration: "She rose to her feet">[
No sleep came to my eyes that long and awful night as the miles spun out which separated me from the one I loved so madly. Yes, I loved her then, and I love her now!
Like a caged and wounded animal I paced the narrow confines of my stateroom. Ten thousand times I asked for the disclosing of this pitiful mystery, and ten thousand times a mocking laugh came back in the roar and shriekings of the train. The car wheels chuckled in rhythm, the airbrakes hissed in derision and the engine whistle hooted in scorn.
It was daybreak when I threw myself on the couch and closed my eyes. I think I slept for an hour or so. To my surprise and disgust I found when I awoke that I was hungry. I had thought I should never care to eat again.
It was necessary to wait several hours when a thousand miles of my journey had been made, and I employed them in writing a letter to her. It was a long letter, and I poured my heart into it. I told her I loved her, and that I was innocent of offense toward her by thought, word or deed.
I could think of only one thing over which she might have taken offense, and this was so absurd that I regretted later to have dignified it by mentioning and apologising for it.
I recalled that I had touched her on the shoulder—the left shoulder. It was an ill-bred and thoughtless act, but as I knew, when I had pondered the matter more calmly, Miss Harding has too much sense and poise to exhibit such anger at what at its worst was merely a boorish indiscretion. It was the only straw on which I could float an apology for a concrete act, but I thought later on I did not help my case by mentioning it.
Imploring her to enlighten me as to my offending, and assuring her of my undying love and abject misery I closed an appeal which exhausted the persuasion, eloquence and rhetoric at my command.
I may as well say now as at any other time that I received no answer to it.
Uncle Henry died on the fourth day after my arrival. Before he passed away he expressed a wish that he be buried in the little Eastern town where he was born. He had forgiven me for turning the old farm into golf links, and aside from a few small bequests, I was his heir. Thus by the death of this good man I come into possession of money, estates, stocks and other property for which I have no use.