Friday Night, April 19.
I am at home again. I take out the package which has been waiting for the day at Omocqua. Hoarding is always imprudence. If these letters of last week had gone on their day, they would have been faithful messengers. Now they go to tell you of a happiness which already is not mine,—of hopes and plans that you can never share.
Are these last pages yesterday's? A lifetime is between me and them. The book I pushed aside to write them lies there open, waiting to be recalled. Had it an interest for me only yesterday? The flowers on my table still hold their frail, transient beauty. No longer ago than when I gathered them, I could take pleasure in flowers!
I sit here and go through the history of these last two days, retracing every minutest incident. I begin again. I make some one little circumstance different, and with it all is changed. I pass into a happy dream; I find myself smiling. And then I remember that I cannot smile!
I was to write to you to-night. I should have written, if I had not promised. I must spend these hours with you. Every object here is so full of pain! Everything is so exactly as it was; and yet nothing can ever be as it was to me again!
It seemed last evening that I suffered more from my disappointment than was reasonable. I wished for sleep to shorten the hours of waiting. But troubled dreams lengthened them instead. I was up at three; at four I was on the road. I had an hour over fields and cleared land; then came some miles through the woods. The forest-ride had not its usual charm. I was still haunted by the failure of yesterday. I could not bear the thought of being misjudged by Harry, even for a moment. I longed to be with him and explain. But would he find me absolved? I was glad to come out into light and cheerfulness at Quickster. It was six o'clock when I stood before the door of the Rapid Run. Barton came down to me, drew out his pocket-book, and took from it a folded paper.
"Here is something of yours."
I opened it and found written in pencil,—"Jackson House, Omocqua." The sight of that frank handwriting dispelled every doubt.
"When was he here?"
"He came in a little before one yesterday. He asked if you had been along. I thought not; you would have given me a call. He stayed round here about an hour, waiting for you. I told him that you might have struck the road farther down,—at Ossian, perhaps. He took a horse of me, knowing you would ride."