“No, never,” Alice answered faintly, a new light breaking in upon her and showing her why it was that Hugh’s face had so often puzzled her.
He was the boy to whose care she had entrusted her life, and she was the Golden Haired, remembered by him so long and so lovingly. There was one great throb of joy,—of perfect delight, and then an intense desire to tell Hugh of her discovery——.
But Hugh was gone, and her only alternative now was to write. He was intending to stop two days in Cincinnati, and he had said to his mother, “If any thing happens you can write to me there,” and something had happened, something which made her heart throb wildly, as alone in her room she knelt and thanked her God, asking that he would care for the Hugh so dear to her, and bring him safely back.
Two days later and Hugh, who had but an hour longer to remain in Cincinnati, sauntered to the post-office, with very little expectations that he should find any thing awaiting him. How then was he surprised when a clerk handed him Alice’s letter, the sixth she had written ere at all satisfied with its wording. Hurrying back to his room at the hotel, he broke the seal, and read as follows.
“Dear Hugh:—I have at last discovered who you are, and why I have so often been puzzled with your face. You are the boy whom I met on the St. Helena, and who rescued me from drowning. Why have you never told me this?
“Dear Hugh, I wish I had known it earlier. It seems so cold, thanking you on paper, but I have no other opportunity, and must do it here.
“We were both unconscious when taken from the water, but you were holding fast to my arm, and so really was the means of my being saved, though a fisherman carried me to the shore. You must have been removed at once, for when we inquired for you we could only learn that you were gone. Heaven bless you, Hugh. My mother prayed often for the preserver of her child, and need I tell you that I, too, shall never forget to pray for you? The Lord keep you in all your ways, and lead you safely to your sister,
Alice.”
Many times Hugh read this note, then pressing it to his lips thrust it into his bosom, but failed to see what Alice had hoped he might see, that the love he once asked for was his at last.
“If she loved me, she would have told me so,” he thought, “for she promised me as much, but she does not, so that ends the drama. Oh, Golden Hair, why did I ever meet her, or why was I suffered to love her so devotedly, if I must lose her at the last!”