"I ought to have some compensation for the excruciating anguish the discovery cost me," retorted Jessie. "Tongue cannot describe the tremendous struggle I went through before I could bring myself to undertake the investigation of your perfidy and his susceptibility. I know just how Esther felt when she screwed her courage to the sticking-point, and made up her mind and her toilette to face Ahasuerus and a possible gallows."
Roy was pretending to listen to the doctor's elaborate disquisition upon an important political question, but he stole a sidelong glance at the sparkling face, across the hearth, and smiled, in gladness of content.
She was his blithe, lovesome witch again. The baleful enchantment that had ensnared her fancy and distracted her thoughts from dwelling upon him and his love—(he refused to believe that he had ever lost her heart)—was destroyed, and, by him, remembered no more as a thing of dread. More to spare him pain than to shield Orrin, Jessie had not entered into the particulars of her estrangement, or revealed who was the prime agent in bringing it about. Wyllys' name was not mentioned by either.
"I had a bad, wild dream—" she thus explained her defection. "A dream that made me doubt you—Heaven—myself—everything! that robbed me of love and hope, with faith. I was susceptible, giddy, undisciplined; and I was grievously tempted by an evil spirit. Maybe"—humbly—"I am no better or wiser now; but I am ready and thankful to give myself up to your guidance. I ought to be a good woman in future; for I have been dealt with very tenderly by my Heavenly Father—and by you, my best earthly friend!"
Roy had no fear. His second wooing was, he felt, crowned with richer, more enduring success than the first had been. He cared not to ask, or to conjecture by what art his image had been clouded over, since he saw it now clearly mirrored in a heart tried by refining fires.
The christening feast was not held until December, at which date Master Kirke Lanneau Fordham was four months old.
Eunice had taken her school and cottage for a year, and the interesting fête could not be appointed until she could make her arrangements to be with her sister. Work for the good of others, and wholesome meditation, had brought to her, as they must to all healthy, God-fearing souls, healing and peace during the months she had spent in her new domicile. With the June vacation had come Jessie and her husband; and when the little claimant upon their love and care arrived, the lonely woman, who had put thoughts of her own wifehood and maternity from her forever, when she turned the key upon the souvenirs of her one love-dream, opened her heart and took in, with the babe, comfort and hope that were, to her, fresh and beautiful life. What Roy's arguments and Jessie's entreaties could not accomplish, the innocent young eyes and clinging baby-fingers effected within a month after her nephew's birth. If Kirke went to Hamilton, she would follow, she promised, and early December saw her domesticated in the Fordham household.
"I wish Orrin Wyllys and his wife were not coming, this evening!" said Jessie, confidentially, to her sister, as they were arraying the boy for the grand occasion.
Eunice looked in no wise surprised at the impetuous exclamation, albeit it was the first avowal of dislike of Roy's relative she had ever heard from Jessie's lips.
"It would not have been expedient to omit them from your list of invitations, my dear!" she returned, with her slow, bright smile. "For Roy's sake, you must disguise your antipathy."