Towards the end of the sermon, which was long and loud, and gave the young couple plenty of opportunity to advance their love making unnoticed, Girtin whispered to her: “Have you an escort home, dear Elsie?”
The answer was a hesitating “Yes.”
The young man felt his heart give a jolt, then almost stop throbbing, and an instant hatred of some unknown rival made his blood boil furiously. How could she act that way? She had, even as his pupil, been indifferent to all of the opposite sex except him, and during the period of their separation her sprightly letters had borne evidence of tender sentiments, to the utter exclusion of all others. Had he not believed in her, he would not have taken that long journey back into the mountains, that many might have been glad to quit for good. Her beauty and her grace had haunted him, and he had determined to wed her, until this sign of duplicity had been sprung on him. Of course she did not know he was coming, and had made the fatal arrangements before; yet, if she cared for him as he did for her, she would not be making engagements with the boys, especially at her tender age.
He tried to console himself by noticing a shade of regret flit over her blushing face after she said the fateful words, but until the close of services he was ill at ease and scarcely opened his mouth. At the benediction he managed to stammer “Good evening,” and was out of the church in the frosty starlight night before any one else.
With long strides he walked up the snowy road ahead of the crowd who had followed him. The sky was very clear, and the North Star, “The Three Kings,” or Jacob’s Rake, Job’s Coffin, and other familiar constellations, were glimmering on the drifted snow. Instead of observing the stars, had he looked back he would have seen that the “escort” she referred to was none other than a girl friend, Katie Moyer, and both, Elsie in particular, would have been only too happy to have a sturdy male companion to see them through the snow banks.
As a result of his disappearance, Elsie was as unhappy and silent as Girtin had been, as she floundered about in the drifts. Despite her gentle, sunny nature, she was decidedly out of sorts when she reached home at the big white house near the Salt Spring. She gave monosyllabic answers to her parents in response to their queries as to how she had enjoyed the long-looked for Christmas entertainment. She did not sleep at all that night, but tossed about the bed, keeping her friend awake, and on Christmas Day was in a rebellious mood. Her mother reminded her how ungrateful she was to be so tearful and sullen in the face of so many blessings and gifts.
There was no stage or sleigh out of the valley on Christmas Day, else Girtin would have departed. He moped about all day, telling those who asked the matter that he was ill. Elsie, knowing that he was still in the valley, hoped up to bedtime that he would at least come to pay her a brief Christmas call, but supper over, and no signs of him, she was uncivil to her mother to such a degree that her friend openly said that she was ashamed of her.
Though Katie and she were rooming together, it did not deter her mother, goaded by the remarks of the younger children to visit her room while they were undressing, saying “that she deserved a good dose of the gad,” and, ordering her to lay face downward on the bed, administered a good, old-fashioned spanking with the flax-paddle. After this humiliating chastisement in the presence of her friend, the unhappy girl cried and sobbed until morning.
It was a wretched ending for what might have been a memorable Christmas for Lambert Girtin and Elsie Vanneman.
The next morning the young man managed to hire a cutter and was driven to Bellefonte, leaving the valley with deep regrets. Through friends in the valley he learned afterwards that Elsie had gone as a missionary to China.