“Why, that is funny,” he said. “If it were not that a carriage is to meet me, I should still be your fellow-traveler, for my route lies that way.”
And then he did ask her uncle’s name. She surely might tell him so much, Maude thought, and replied:
“Captain James Alling, my mother’s brother.”
Her name was not Alling, then, and reflecting that now he knew who her uncle was he could probably trace her, Max saw her into the stage, and taking her ungloved hand in his held it perhaps a trifle longer than he would have done if it had not been so very soft and white and pretty, and rested so confidingly in his, while she thanked him for his kindness. Then the stage drove away, while he stood watching it, and wondering why the morning was not quite so bright as it had been an hour ago, and why he had not asked her point-blank who she was, or had been so stupid as not to give her his card.
“Max Gordon, you certainly are getting into your dotage,” he said to himself. “A man of your age to be so interested in a little unknown girl! What would Grace say? Poor Grace. I wonder if I shall find her improved, and why she has buried herself in this part of the country.”
As he entered the hotel a thought of Maude Graham’s letter came to his mind, and calling for pen and paper he dashed off the following:
Canandaigua, September —, 18—.
Miss Maude Graham,—Your letter did not reach me until last night, when it was brought me by a friend. I have not been in Boston since the first of last July, and the reason it was not forwarded to me is that you addressed it wrong, and they were in doubt as to its owner. My name is Gordon, not Marshall, as you supposed, and I am very sorry for your sake and your mother’s that I ever bought Spring Farm. Had I known what I do now I should not have done so. But it is too late, and I can only promise to keep it as you wish until you can buy it back. You are a brave little girl and I will sell it to you cheap. I should very much like to know you, and when I am again in Merrivale I shall call upon you and your mother, if she will let me.
With kind regards to her I am
Yours truly,