He sorted out her letters, and placed them with her picture in a secret drawer, for he had a lingering fondness for his old sweetheart, pretty Gussie, the famous novelist.
"I will just keep these," he said. "I don't believe Kathleen would care, for she reads and loves Gussie's novels. And if anything should happen that I do not marry Kathleen—and it was strange the way she acted about Chainey—I should like to know I have these still."
He gathered all his mementoes and, with a genuine sigh, flung them upon the glowing blaze.
"It is but just to Kathleen," he said, trying to stifle his regret.
"Back the mists of years are rolling
As these relics of the past,
With a wondrous fascination,
Have their spells around me cast.
Crowds of tender recollections
Fill my eyes with unshed tears;
Dimmer grows the glowing future—
Dimmer till it disappears."
Teddy had a warm heart, and it was no disloyalty to Kathleen that made him sigh so sadly. He would not have exchanged her for any other girl he had ever loved; but somehow the thought of Gussie haunted him. She had been his first love, and it was a lover's quarrel that had driven them asunder. That was several years ago, and now she was married and a shining literary light: but it was quite certain that if ever Kathleen had a rival in Teddy's thoughts, it would be this one lost love.
A loud rap at the door startled him. It was Jack Wren, who entered in haste with an excited face.
"I had quite given you up, Mr. Wren," said Teddy, startled out of his tender recollections.
"Darrell, come with me. We have no time to lose. I have made a startling discovery. I have a cab waiting below, and you must come with me to the rescue of one you love, for she is at this moment in peril of her life! I have been on Ivan Belmont's track ever since I saw you, and he and Fedora, who escaped from the prison when the cyclone shattered it, are together now at Cooper's saw-mill, in Wild Cat Glen, plotting a terrible crime!" breathlessly answered Jack Wren.