“It has come,” she thought to herself, as she turned to make her way homewards by the least frequented route. “Now I must pull myself together, and think it well—well over!”
Yet now that it had come, she almost shrank from facing the “it.” Now that she believed the matter to be in her own hands, she wished she could put it from her. But soon her natural womanly feeling reasserted itself, and she realised—whatever her own decision might be—the gratification, the satisfaction to her self-respect of the definiteness, the actual expression in plain terms of Horace’s regard for her, which, as she believed, the letter in her hand contained.
And, as soon as she found herself in a part of the road where interruption was improbable, she broke the seal—for sealed the letter was, which in itself marked it as something out of the common—and drew forth the sheet it contained.
It was dated from his club, and had been written only the day before.
“My dear Miss Morion,” it began—why did these four words, correct and natural enough under the circumstances, cause to pass through her a little thrill of—she scarcely knew what? Misgiving? Apprehension? Neither word expressed it clearly. It was more a sort of intuitive anticipation of some great impending change in the aspect of things, something which would cause her bewilderment as well as pain, which would, as it were, necessitate a reconstruction of all the theories as to herself and her own life, in which of late she had been living.
She read on.
“My dear Miss Morion,—First of all, I feel that I must thank you, and that most heartily, for your goodness to me of late. You have cheered and encouraged me more than you know; in no way resenting the, in one sense, unsatisfactory degree of confidence which was all I felt free to give you hitherto. No one could have been wiser than you have been, no one, I am well assured, could have been more entirely trustworthy. Sometimes, I may confess, I could scarcely have borne it all but for feeling and knowing that I had your sympathy and good wishes, and pity, even, for the miserable uncertainty in which I was forced to leave things; the uncertainty, I mean, as to her feeling towards me, as to the possibility, which now and then seems to me a wild dream, of her in any way responding to what I feel for her. But now I have come to a certain decision. I must know the best or the worst, by which of course you will understand that I mean my chances at head-quarters—with your sister herself. I have sounded my mother so far as I felt it expedient to do so, for I am most anxious to keep Betty’s name out of the way of all remark till I know how I stand with her. I am delighted to find that my mother has a strong personal liking for her—though how could it be otherwise? But I will not trust to this in any practical way. I have decided not to give up my profession, which, with the small private means I am sure of, makes marriage possible without any wild imprudence. Scores of men, especially in India, get on all right with less, and without things being too hard upon their wives. That I could not bear. And even as it is, I dread the thought of the climate for one so tender and fragile. Still, all things considered, I think the time has come for laying it before her, not hiding from her the sacrifices it might have to entail upon her, though these, I need not say, so far as it lies within the power of man to do so, should be counterbalanced by the entire and absolute devotion of my whole life. I intend coming down to Craig-Morion in the course of a few weeks, nominally to settle up some things there for my mother and myself, in reality to learn my fate. I may perhaps write a word or two to your father, just to allude to my coming, in a commonplace way, which may come round to her. You will, I know, do whatever is judicious as to this, although you will see that it is best for her never to suspect that you have been my confidante. And now you must forgive this long letter; selfish, I should feel it, were it not that I well know the depth of your sisterly devotion, and that nothing concerning her can fail to ensure your heartiest interest. So I will not inflict more apologies upon you. I will only thank you again and again.
“Yours most sincerely,—
“Horace Bertram Littlewood.”