When he returned to the house he found the family aroused. Barbara met him on the piazza, asking anxiously what had happened. The report of the revolver had awakened her.
"It was a bear, Barbara," said her brother. "It is a shame to have roused you all, and for nothing, too. I thought I had a sure shot, and that we should have bear-steak for dinner to-morrow."
"A bear, Hal? How strange! Why, this is the first time one ever came so near the house, is n't it?"
"No; Ralph killed two long ago, before you can remember. Go to bed now, and get the house quiet, for heaven's sake!"
The young man kept his own counsel, and the next morning made a careful examination of the grounds near the house. On the farther side of the orchard there were traces of a pair of horses having been tethered.
Two more days went by, and still Graham did not come. Millicent was distressed and puzzled at his long absence; and finally, after thoughtful deliberation, she decided to write to him, telling him how grieved she was at her own unreasonable behavior.
Graham found a letter early one morning folded in an embroidered kerchief, and laid before the door of his tower. That heavy unpainted barrier could have told a tale like that of Tennyson's talking oak, had it been given the power of speech. Trembling lips had pressed timid kisses upon its weather-beaten panels. Strange old door of the tower, roughly fashioned by the Mission priests a century ago, what secrets have you not shut in; what hopes have you not seen pass out between your time-rusted lintels!
It was the first letter Millicent had ever written him; he had but once before seen her handwriting. The girlish, weak hand which had traced the words in the little journal was greatly altered. It was now a graceful, flowing chirography, full of that individuality which stamped everything appertaining to her. Graham studied the superscription carefully before he broke the golden seal, with its device of Psyche with new-found wings. It ran as follows:--
BELOVED,--Forgive me! forgive me if you will, for I cannot forgive myself. I was wrong to grudge you the time passed with your work. It was weak and selfish of me; but now that I know my fault, be not afraid. Believe that I am strong enough to overcome it. For the red roses at my window I thank you; and for the fair picture and the graceful couplet, for all the tender thoughts which prompted you to send me these tokens, bless you a hundred times. But oh! my lover, come to me; and let me read in your strange eyes, that are now bright and cold as ocean deeps, and again burning with Promethean fire, that I am forgiven. Not rose nor picture, not poem nor sweet garland, can tell me as can they that you love me.
MILLICENT.