I built a fire at once in the fireplace in the front room, and went over my mail eagerly by the light of my green-shaded lamp. One envelope bore the New York postmark, and I opened it with nervous fingers. I read the communication it contained, and sat, a warm, surging joy transfusing my whole being. The publishing firm in New York had accepted my novel for publication, and the terms mentioned were generous beyond my wildest visionings.
There was another communication that I read over and over; and as I read I knew that I was free at last—yes, free forever—free to ask any woman in the world to be my wife; I knew that the search light of justice could be turned on a folded page of my past that had long been hidden, and that there would be no tarnish on the page. For the letter said that my poor old father was dead, and in dying had confessed to a forgery committed eight years ago—a crime which his son had tacitly admitted himself to be guilty of when he had stolen away under cover of the night and disappeared, rather than face an investigation.
The daily papers had blazoned abroad the shooting of Randall Batterly, and the subsequent trial of Wanza Lyttle, and my name had appeared in the account, the writer who was my father’s lawyer explained. A letter to the postmaster at Roselake had resulted in further establishing my identity.
The writer had the honor to inform me that my father had left a snug little fortune—the result of some recent fortunate mining ventures—that would accrue to me, and he begged me to come back to my southern home and take my rightful place among the people. I shook my head at this. Who was there in the old home who would welcome me? My mother was long since dead—my father gone. There was no one belonging to me left in the old place. It would be more strange and forlorn than an entirely new community. I should like to visit it again. But that was all.
I dropped the letter to the floor, and sat thinking of Haidee. And as I thought I smiled tenderly. After a time I decided that Haidee should see these important letters—that I should go to her. And on a sudden impulse I rose up.
As I opened the door the snow was falling, and there was a ring around the moon. I left the door open and stepped back into the house, going to the cedar room to get my sweater. When I returned, a woman with snow-powdered hair was stepping hesitatingly across the threshold. Haidee!
“It is you! Out so late—alone!” I began. “And in this storm.”
But the big eyes only smiled at me, and she stood there like a beautiful wraith in her long gray cloak.
“Let me take your cloak,” I said.
I went to her, and she put both hands on my shoulders impulsively.