She stopped and looked sharply at Carrie, who stood by Jim and smiled. Her color was high and her face and pale-green dress cut against the background of somber oak. Her pose was graceful but proud. Jim remembered her coming down the stairs on her first evening in the house; she had looked like that then. Somehow one felt she was there by right.
"If you go, you must leave me," she said. "I belong to Langrigg and Jim."
Mrs. Winter advanced and kissed her and Jake gave Jim his hand. "For a time, it looked as if we were going to lose you, partner. Still I felt you would come back to us."
"I don't know if I've come back or gone forward," Jim rejoined. "All that's important is, Carrie and I go on together."
For half an hour they engaged in happy talk and when, after dinner, Carrie and Jim were again alone, she said, "You have forgotten something. Oughtn't we to tell Bernard?"
"Of course," Jim agreed. "Somehow I think he'd like it if you wrote the note."
Carrie sent him for a pen and soon after he came back fastened and gave him the envelope.
"I suppose I ought to feel nervous, but I don't," she said. "I was never afraid of Bernard."
Next evening Bernard came to dinner. Jim and his party met him in the hall, but he signed the others back when Carrie gave him her hand.
"I am the head of the house and claim my right," he said and kissed her. "Some day Jim will take my place and I think he will fill it well."