“Elisabeth!” he cried.
“I don’t understand,” she said weakly. “It was so very long ago—oh! is it really you? I—I—thought you would never come back—so long ago—and you were angry—we were both angry; but I was the one to blame——”
“No, no, no,” he interrupted, “mine was the real fault. I knew that when it was too late, but I couldn’t let you know. Before we could make our port the ship was wrecked—oh! it’s a sad story. Most of the crew were lost; but the few of us who were saved lived somehow on that desolate little island waiting—hoping—fearing—through those interminable months before the rescue came. Then we were carried off to the other side of the world, and from place to place,—wanderers on the face of the globe; but I got home at last, and—there was no home for me—you had gone away, you and Baby. They couldn’t tell me where, but I searched for you, my girl, I searched for you. I wouldn’t give up looking—I meant to find you—and it was so useless—”
She clung closer to him, stroking his quivering face with gentle fingers.
“I thought you never meant to come back,” she whispered, “and I wanted to beg you to come. I wanted to tell you I was really the most to blame, but I didn’t know where to send a letter—I had to keep still. Oh! I waited so patiently, and every day was a year. Then when you didn’t come, I couldn’t bear the neighbors’ pity; it—it hurt!—so I stole away one night with Betty. We went to a big city where no one knew us, and we were very poor. I didn’t mind much for myself, only for Baby. It was so hard to find work, I—I almost gave up. Then I remembered Uncle Steven, my mother’s half-brother, who used to be with us a good deal when I was a child. I knew he was all alone out here, and I felt he would help Betty and me in our troubles. And he was so good—he is so good! He didn’t even wait to answer my letter; he came to find us instead, and he brought us back to share his home with him. That was three years ago—— But you, how is it you are here?”
“It’s a long story, Bess, darling. I’ve knocked around everywhere. I hadn’t the heart to settle to anything, you know,—hunting, trapping, whatever offered. I’d try first one thing and then another. Something made me come over here—I don’t know what it was—I simply had to come. I was on my way to the Northwest, and passed through Wistar three weeks ago, never dreaming you were so near; then I went on to the logging-camp and stopped there for a time, but I’d made all my plans to leave to-morrow——” his voice trembled, and he rested his face against hers. “Oh!” he went on brokenly, “I might have missed you altogether; we might never have met again—never—if it hadn’t been for Santa Claus’ sweetheart——”
She looked up curiously, interrupting him with a quick exclamation, and bit by bit the account of the little child’s arrival at the lumber-camp was told.
“But didn’t you know right away who she was?” the mother asked jealously when he paused.
“Dear, I didn’t. She was such a baby when I left,—scarcely two years old, you remember. There was a likeness, though, to you that troubled me, but I told myself I was fanciful. I’ve seen that likeness so many times,—it has been upper-most in my mind, going with me everywhere, eluding me everywhere. And, her name was different—Hammond.”
“That’s uncle’s name; he would have her called so. Then you came all that way not knowing who she was, nor for my sake?”