He did ask her to become his wife—if that were asking. And she had refused, if that were refusing.
“Can you have dinner in half an hour?” Roger asked, coming to the open window near the sink. “I only this minute remembered that I promised King to drive over this afternoon to talk his parish difficulties over with him. His housekeeper has gone, did I tell you? He’s keeping house by himself—has been trying it a month, or I’d take you and Judith for the drive; he would not relish your seeing his house-keeping. Don’t hurry too much; give me a cold dinner with a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll ring the bell in half an hour; Judith will help me,” she replied, hearing the sound of her own voice with every word she spoke.
The words she was speaking did not touch her own life—nothing was in her life but that letter in her hand; she had as much of it as she could bear just now, she thought she would hide it away and never open it. It was another thing to die and be buried.
Judith came and began to set the dinner table and to tell her the last pretty thing Nettie Evans said—Marion moved absently about the kitchen; the letter was pushed down in her dress pocket.
When at last she could bear the suspense no longer, she asked Judith to boil the eggs, and to bring the rice pudding from the cellar, and went up stairs to her own chamber and shut the door. If she did not have to bear this—if only it had not come to disturb her peace—she was satisfied without it. It was a long letter; it was full of something, her heart was beating so fast and choking her that she read sentence after sentence without gathering any thought or incident; it was words, words, words.
“I expect to sail for home next month; I am tired of being a stranger and a foreigner. You have never written to me beyond those two words; but I know what you have been to my Cousin Judith. I think I have grown old since you saw me; life has grown old if I have not. I know from the letters of Roger and Judith that you are just the same. Unless you are just the same I would not care to see you again. Your old friend, Don.”
She opened a drawer and laid the letter away; she would understand the rest of it when she was not in such a tumult. Did Roger know he was coming home? Judith had not told her. Had he told no one but herself? Did he expect her to tell the others? She had to take her eyes and burning cheeks down stairs, but she did not have to speak of her letter yet. And, after all, there was nothing in it to speak of. It was a letter not worth the writing.
The girl in the blue gingham, with the yellow waves of hair dropping to her waist in one long braid, was giving the last touches to the dinner table set for three; the roses in the centre of the table were from Aunt Affy’s garden.
“They are talking still—Uncle Cephas and Roger. They will never get through; they begin in the middle every time. I have been so interested that I forgot to boil the eggs. There are chops down cellar; shall I broil them? I always think of Don when I broil chops. I broiled chops for him that last time I saw him. Do you know I believe he is coming home soon? He thinks he will surprise me; but I have guessed it all summer.”