I was not surprised. I knew he would say it sometime, and I replied at once, "Yes, Guy, I will."
He has been here since, and we have talked it over, all the past when I made him so unhappy, and when I, too, was so wretched, though I did not say much about that, or tell him of the dull, heavy, gnawing pain which, sleeping or waking, I carried with me so long, and only lost when I began to live for others. I did speak of the letter, and said I had loved him ever since I wrote it, and that his marrying Julia made no difference, and then I told him of poor Tom, and what I said to him, not from love but from a sense of duty, and when I told him how Tom would not take me at my word, he held me close to him and said, "I am glad he did not, my darling, for then you would never have been mine."
I think we both wept over those two graves, one far off in sunny France, the other in Saratoga, and both felt how sad it was that they must be made in order to bring us together. Poor Julia! She was a noble woman, and Guy did love her. He told me so, and I am glad of it. I mean to try to be like her in those things wherein she excelled me.
We are going straight to Cuylerville to the house where I never was but once, and that on the night when Guy was sick and Miss Frances made me go back in the thunder and rain. She is sorry for that, for she told me so in the long, kind letter she wrote, calling me her little sister and telling me how glad she is to have me back once more. Accidentally I heard Elmwood was for sale, and without letting Guy know I bought it, and sent him the deed, and we are going to make it the most attractive place in the county.
It will be our summer home, but in the winter my place is here in New York with my people, who would starve and freeze without me. Guy has agreed to that and will be a great help to me. He need never work any more unless he chooses to do so, for my agent says I am a millionaire, thanks to poor Tom, who gave me his gold mine and his interest in that railroad. And for Guy's sake I am glad, and for his children, the precious darlings; how much I love them already, and how kind I mean to be to them both for Julia's sake and Guy's. Hush! That's his ring, and there's his voice in the hall asking for Miss McDonald, and so for the last time I write that name, and sign myself
Margaret McDonald.
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Extracts from Miss Frances Thornton's Diary.
Elmwood, June 15th, —.
I have been looking over an old journal, finished and laid away long ago, and accidentally I stumbled upon a date eleven years back. It was Guy's wedding day then; it is his anniversary now, and as on that June day years ago I worked among my flowers, so have I been with them this morning, and as then people from the Towers came into our beautiful grounds, so they came to-day and praised our lovely place and said there was no spot like it in all the country round. But Julia was not with them. She will never come to us again. Julia is dead, and her grave is in Saratoga, for Guy dare not have her moved, but he has erected a costly monument to her memory, and the mound above her is like some bright flower bed all the summer long, for he hires a man to tend it, and goes twice each season to see that it is kept as he wishes to have it. Julia is dead and Daisy is here again at Elmwood, which she purchased with her own money, and fitted up with every possible convenience and luxury.