“Yes, Mary dear.”
“Well, times when I feel like my heart would bust out with grievin', I go off and away by myself somewhere and kinder mourn.”
“Yes, you dear, faithful soul!”
“And I'm like to choose some spot that 'minds me of my lamb.”
“Yes.”
“Well, 't was only this mornin' that I woke up and missed him out of common, so sweet he was when he waked up, and cheery as a robin! So, 't was early, early mornin', the sun just up, and I crep' out quiet and went out to the garden and sat down in the arbor where I ust to sit and watch the little darlin' at his play—well, miss, I have to tell you that I sat there cryin' like a baby, and 't was a while before I seen that there lay a paper under the bench, like as if it might have fallen there from a body's pocket. I picked it up, and't was covered with heathenish writin'. Here. I kep' it in my apron to show you, miss.”
She took the paper from her pocket, and I sprang up and seized it eagerly. I had no doubt whatever that it had been lost by my double as she sat with Paul last night. It was a letter in the Russian script. I read it rapidly.
“Ever dear and honored madame, I await the summons of your necessity. A message received here”—there followed a name and address of some town in the county, unknown to me—“will bring me to Pine Cone in a few hours by motor-cycle. I hold myself at your commands, and will lend you the service of my knowledge in translating the Slavonic curiosity you have described to me so movingly. I need not remind you of your promises. One knows that they are never broken, even to death. Appoint a place and hour. Meet me or send some accredited messenger. It could all be arranged between sunrise and sunset or—should you prefer—between sunset and sunrise. Do not forget your faithful servant, and the servant of that Eternal Eye that watches the good and evil of this earthly life.”