She had often thought of the new Mrs. Bennett, wondering if her simple devotion had ever won her rotund husband’s heart, but she had never written her a line in her eagerness to forget the grief over those last days, and put them behind her forever.
Now she thought, tenderly, of the good woman, murmuring:
“How strange it seems I have never heard one word from all I left behind! Some of them may be dead, some married—Jessie and Chester, of course, long ago—but there are few I care for save my dear old governess and Mrs. Gray!”
Putting all these thoughts behind her with a passing wonder why they had come like ghosts from a dead past to disturb her present peace, she rang for her maid and got ready for her shopping tour.
An hour later she knew why those subtle memories had overwhelmed her this morning. It was the influence of telepathy.
Turning over some rare silks at the Arcade, her heart leaped, and her blood turned cold in her veins at the sound of a familiar voice:
“Leola Mead, am I dreaming, or is it really you? What a charming surprise! Why, only this morning I was thinking of you, wondering where you were; and to find you here so soon, it’s like a dream!”
“My foe undreamed of by my side
Stood suddenly like fate—
To those who love, the world is wide,