“Oh! how silly I am,” she exclaimed, chiding herself, “of course George is late because he has to buy me a new ring.”
This explanation was entirely sufficient, and the once more radiant bride ascended to her room humming a dainty little operatic air, as happy as the mocking-bird which flooded the sunny stairway with melody.
But the shadow returned to the young wife’s face with ever-deepening gloom when the six o’clock and seven o’clock trains arrived and brought no husband with them.
“He is detained on business, dear,” explained her grandma.
“Why couldn’t he telegraph then?”
“There is no office within five miles, love, and no doubt he thought he would get here before his message.”
But another trouble weighed—and heavily—upon the young bride’s mind. The last train was due at eight o’clock, the hour so urgently appointed by her brother for their interview. How could she possibly meet both her husband and her brother at the same time?
This brother was a sad scapegrace, and it had been the one mistake of the bride’s married life not to mention his existence to her husband.
“Why don’t you tell your husband about Tom?” had urged the old lady.
“O, I can’t bear George to know that I have anybody disgraceful so nearly related to me; if ever he misunderstood any of my actions, or if I was not at hand to explain them, he would be certain to think that I was going wrong, like poor Tom, and it would break my heart. Don’t you remember, dear, that night when we were talking about the Wollanders, how scornfully he said: ‘Oh, they couldn’t run straight to save their lives—it is in the blood—the strain is bad.’ That sentence of George’s determined me not to tell him anything.”