“And does he live in New York!” Edith asked; and Mrs. Sinclair replied:
“Yes, or rather a little way out, in the town called Hampstead, on the Hudson river. He has a beautiful place, I am told, which they call Schuyler Hill.”
“And you have news from him?” Edith said next, her heart beating rapidly at the lady’s reply.
“Yes. He is in Scotland, it seems, and wrote to know if I could receive him and his son Godfrey about this time,—let me see, the 15th of June he said, and this is the 14th. I was to answer at once, and direct to Edinburgh, where he would wait my reply. His letter was written ten days ago, and I am so much afraid he has become impatient at not hearing from me, that he will perhaps go directly to the continent without stopping here at all. My head feels so badly, would you mind writing a few lines for me, just to say that I am home, and shall be glad to see him?”
“Certainly not,” Edith answered in a voice which did not in the least betray the storm of feeling she experienced at being thus unexpectedly brought face to face as it were with a past she had almost outlived.
To stay in that room with Mrs. Sinclair while she wrote to Colonel Schuyler was impossible, and asking permission to withdraw, she went to her own chamber to be alone while she penned a letter which by some one of those subtle emotions or presentiments which none can explain, she felt would influence her whole future life. She could not understand it, nor did she attempt to seek a reason for it, but she felt certain that Colonel Schuyler was the arbiter of her fate, and that with his coming would begin a new era for her, and her hand trembled so at first that she could scarcely hold the pen, and much less write a word. At last she commenced:
“Oakwood, June 14th, 18—, Colonel Schuyler,” and there she stopped, overpowered with the memories which the sight of that name evoked. Once more she stood with her lover at the garden gate, and saw the night fog creeping across the river, and heard in the distance the faint rumble of the fast coming train which had thundered by just as she gave her boy-husband the last good-by kiss, and fastened in his buttonhole the rose, which she still carefully preserved together with a silken curl cut from baby’s head during the first days of her maternity.
How every little thing connected with that curl and rose came back to her now, and for an instant she felt faint and sick again, just as she had felt when they brought the dead man in and carried him out again. In her desolation she had said: “I hate the Schuylers,” and she almost hated them now, even though she knew them innocent of any wrong to her. Col. Schuyler she remembered as a tall, fine-looking man, and she had him in her mind just as he was when he stood in the garden path and glanced wonderingly up at her as she called out the name and age and birth-place of the poor youth whose memory he wished to honor. That was the only time he had ever seen her, and she had no fear that he would recognize her now. So it was not this which made her tremble as she again took up her pen to bid him come to Oakwood, his sister’s country-seat. It was a shrinking from she did not know what, and after the letter was written and approved by Mrs. Sinclair, she felt tempted to tear it up instead of giving it to the servant whose duty it was to post it. But this she dared not do, and the letter was sent on its way, and as soon as it was possible to receive an answer one came to Mrs. Sinclair, who read aloud at the breakfast table:
“Dear Sister Helen:—Yours of the 14th received and contents noted. Shall probably be with you the day after you get this. Godfrey will accompany me.
“Truly, your brother, Howard.”