“At last a chance came for me to leave the coast, and I availed myself of it. An English sailing vessel, bound for Liverpool, took me on board, but, as if I were a second Jonah, we encountered heavy seas and violent storms, so that we were double the usual length of time in reaching Liverpool, where I took a steamer for New York, where I landed just a week before you found me here. Not wishing to shock my family, as I knew they would be shocked if they had never received my letter, I telegraphed to Mr. Beresford that I should be home on the next train from New York. The news took him as much by surprise as if one of the dead bodies in the grave-yard had walked in upon him, and I have been told that all Merrivale was wild with excitement, and that Uncle Tom, usually so quiet and undemonstrative, went himself and rang the fire-bell, to call the people out so as to tell them the news. I really believe the entire town was at the station to meet me when the train came in, and had I permitted it some of the men would have carried me in their arms up the hill to my very door, where Ethel and Grace and grandma were waiting to receive me. Mother was in bed, going from one fainting fit to another, and father was with her trying to quiet her. Poor old father, I used to think he cared more for his ferns and his flowers than for his children, but I have changed my mind, and never shall forget the expression of his face when he met me at the door, and, leading me to my mother, said to her, so tenderly:
“Here he is, Mary—here is our boy. Now please don’t faint again. ‘Praised be God.’
“To me he never spoke a word for full five minutes, but sat smoothing and patting my hands, and rubbing with his handkerchief a speck of dirt from my coat sleeve, while he looked at me so lovingly, with the great tears in his eyes and his lips quivering with his emotions. He has grown old so fast within the last few months. His hair is quite gray, and he stoops when he walks, though I do believe he was straighter when I came away, and younger, too, in looks. I did not know my friends were so fond of a good-for-nothing like me. It was almost worth my while to go and be drowned for the sake of all the petting I had at home the few days I remained there. But one thing was wanting. You did not come to meet me, and I wondered at it, for I think I had half expected to see your face among the very first to welcome me, and I felt disappointed and a little hurt at its absence. I did not know but you were Mr. Beresford’s wife, and though the thought that it might be so hurt me cruelly, I had made up my mind to hide the hurt and make the best of the inevitable. It would be some comfort to see you, even if you belonged to another, and all the time I was receiving the welcome congratulations of my friends, I was thinking of and watching for you. But you did not appear, and no one mentioned your name until late in the evening, when Ethel asked me to go with her for a walk in the garden before retiring, and then she told me the strangest story I ever heard of you and Margery, who, it seems, is my cousin, while you——”
He paused a moment, while Queenie turned very white, and with a long, gasping breath, said, faintly:
“Yes, Phil, I know what I am. Don’t remind me please.”
“Queenie,” and Phil drew the trembling girl closer to him, and stroking her bowed head continued: “Do you for a moment suppose that I have ever given the accident of your birth a thought, except to be glad, with a gladness I cannot express, that you are not my cousin? And when Ethel told me of your grief at my supposed death, and the love you were not then ashamed to confess for me, I felt that I must fly to you at once, and only my mother’s weak condition and her entreaties for me to wait a little kept me from doing so. She and my sisters thought you were in Florida, for Margery had kept your secret, as you wished, and had not told them of your rash plan of coming here into this atmosphere of infection and death. But she told me when I went next day to see her, and told me, too, of all the remorse, and pain, and bitter humiliation you had endured; and, better than all the rest, of the perfect trust and faith you had in me—that were I living a hundred Christines could make no difference with me, and she was right. I would have called that woman mother for your sake had she lived, and treated her with as much respect as if she had been Margaret Ferguson instead of Christine Bodine. My cousin Margery I adopted at once. She is a noble woman, and so true to you. By the way, I fancy that Mr. Beresford visits Hetherton Place quite as often as he used to do in the days when I was so horridly jealous of him, and you played with us both as the cat plays with the mouse it has captured. And I am glad, for the match is every way suitable. Beresford is a noble fellow—a little too proud, perhaps, in some respects, and a trifle peculiar, too; but Margery will cure all that, and I would rather see him master of Hetherton Place than any one I know, if Margery must be its mistress. She wishes you to return and live with her; but of that by and by. When she told me where you were, my heart gave a great throb of terror for you, and I resolved to start at once and take you away if I should find you alive. I had a mortal fear of the fever, and this, I think, added to my mental excitement and the low state of my health, made me more liable to take it, as I did almost immediately, for I was sick and unable to leave my bed the very first morning after my arrival, and before I had time to inquire for you. You know how Christine found me and saved my life, for but for her I should most surely have died.
“And now, Queenie, I have been talking with the physician, who says I must leave the city at once if I would recover my strength, and he advises a stay of a few weeks in some quiet, cool spot among the mountains of Tennessee, where I shall grow strong and lazy again. You know that is my strong point—laziness.”
He looked a little quizzically at her, but she paid no attention. She only said:
“I think that would be so nice. Have you decided upon the place?”
He told her of a little spot which the physician had recommended, where the air was pure and the water good, and then continued: