Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Eight.
The Eve of the Finish.
“A letter, Claire, so painful that I shrank from reading it to you, only that I have no secrets from my promised wife.”
“Does it give you pain?” said Claire, as she looked up in Richard Linnell’s face, where they sat in the half-light of evening, with the sea spread before them—placid and serene as their life had been during the past few weeks.
“Bitter pain,” he said sadly, as he gazed at the saddened face, set off by the simple black in which she was clothed.
“Then why not let me share it? Is pain so new a thing to me?”
“So old that I would spare you more; and yet you ought to know my family cares, as I have known yours.”
“May I read?” said Claire softly, as she laid her thin white hand upon the letter.