Once, twice, three times?
No, I do not believe you can guess what it was that gave me such delight in the “good news from home,” sharp and shrewd though you may think yourself.
If you will take my advice, you had better treat it as a conundrum and “give it up.”
Don’t keep you in suspense, eh?
Well then, I will tell you—here goes.
It is a long story—too long to describe in detail; but the upshot of it was that my kind friend the vicar, cognisant of the sincere affection that existed between my darling and myself, and knowing the suffering that had been caused to us both by the enforced silence which we had to maintain towards each other, had interceded with Mrs Clyde on our behalf; and, what is more, had done so successfully!
There, fancy that! Don’t you think I had sufficient reason to be rejoiced?
Min and I were to be allowed to write to each other for a year—as “friends,” a condition of intimacy to which her mother seemed to attach a good deal of point, as she had made it an obligatory proviso to our correspondence. Mrs Clyde had, in addition to this, tacked on a sweeping clause to the agreement, to the effect that, in case my prospects at the end of the year should not warrant my returning to England and claiming Min as my promised wife—prospects of a short engagement and an easy settlement being also satisfactory—the whole negotiation should fall to the ground and be considered null and void; we, reverting to our original and hopeless position of soi-disant strangers or “friends” at a distance, and looking upon the interlude of our letter-writing as if it had never occurred.
I did not give much thought, however, to this ultimatum.
I was too full of happiness at the idea of being allowed to correspond at once with my darling, and hear from her own dear self after the weary months that had passed since our separation. Why, I would be able to tell her all my plans and hopes and fears, conscious that her sympathy would never fail to congratulate me in success; condole with me, cheer me, encourage me, in failure!