"Trix has told me nothing," she manages to answer, and she wonders at herself to find how steady is her own voice.
"No?" Charley says, elevating his eyebrows; "and they say the age of wonders is over! Trix in the new roll of keeping her own secrets! Well, I very naturally return for the wedding—our wedding. It's extraordinary that Trix hasn't told you, but she will. Then—my Western home will be ready by that time, and we go back immediately. My mother goes with me, I need hardly say."
Still so absolutely wrapped up in her thoughts of him, so utterly forgetful of Trix, that she does not understand. Our wedding—he means his own and Nellie Seton's of course. His Western home, the home where she will reign as his wife. In the days that have gone, Edith thinks she has suffered—she feels to-night that she has never suffered until now! She deserves it, but if he had only spared her,—only left it for some one else to tell. It is a minute before she can reply—then, despite every effort, her voice is husky:
"I wish you joy, Charley—with all my heart"
She cannot say one word more. Something in the words, in her manner of saying them, makes him look at her in surprise.
"Well, yes," he answers coolly; "a wedding in a family is, I believe, a general subject of congratulation. And I must say she has shown herself a trump—the bravest, best girl alive. And you"—they are drawing near a hotel—"may I venture to ask your plans, Lady Catheron? how long do you think of remaining in New York?"
"I shall leave at once—at once," she replied in the same husky tone. To stay and meet Nellie Seton after to-night is more than she is able to do. They are close to the hotel now. Involuntarily—unconsciously, she clings to his arm, as the drowning may cling to a straw. She feels in a dull, agonized sort of way that in five minutes the waters will have closed over her head, and the story of her life have come to an end.
"Here we are," his frank, cheery voice says—his voice, that has yet a deeper, more earnest tone than of old. "You don't know, Edith, how glad I am of this meeting—how glad to hear you never in any way blamed me."
"I blame you! oh, Charley!" she says with a passionate little cry.
"I rejoice to hear, that with all its drawbacks, you don't regret the past. I rejoice in the knowledge that you are rich and happy, and that a long, bright life lies before you. Edith," he takes both her hands in his strong, cordial clasp, "if we never meet again, God bless you, and good-by."