Mrs. Wadsworth’s strong will triumphed, as it usually did, and Dinah was sent into the country early in the last week of September, with a promise from Tessa that she would release her from her durance as soon as one of her books was finished and herself spend the remainder of the winter with the childless old people who had been looking forward to this pleasure from winter to winter ever since Tessa was ten years old. Half Dunellen had pacified Dinah with the promise of long weekly letters, and she knew that Tessa and her father would write often. “I am not strong enough to write letters,” her mother had said. “Tessa will tell you every thing.” “I will add a postscript whenever Tessa will permit,” said Mr. Hammerton, which queerly enough consoled homesick Dinah more than all the other promises combined.
Sue had not come to talk to Tessa and she dared not go to Dr. Greyson’s for fear of influencing her. She had met Dr. Lake once; he had lifted his hat with a flourish, but would not stop to speak to her.
And now it was Wednesday and Sue’s wedding day had been set for Friday.
At noon, among other letters, her father brought her a note from Felix Harrison:
“I must see you; I want to talk to you. Come Wednesday afternoon.”
How she shrank from this interview she did not understand until she could think it over years afterward. In those after years when she said, “I do not want to live my life over again,” she remembered her experiences with Felix Harrison; more than all, the feeling of those weeks when she had felt bound. It was also in her mind when she said, as she often did say, in later life, “I could never influence any one to marry.” How often an expression in the mature years of a woman’s life would reveal a long story, if one could but read it.
Another word of hers in her middle age, “I love to help little girls to be happy,” was the expression to years of longing that no one had ever guessed; her mother least of all.
But she had not come to this settled time yet; it was weary years before she was at leisure from herself. It was Wednesday noon now and Felix had sent for her; she shrank from him with a shrinking amounting to terror; he would touch her hand, most certainly, and he might put his arm around her and kiss her; she would faint and fall at his feet if he did; he might say that she had promised him, that she was bound to him, that he would never let her go; that he was gaining strength and that she must become his wife or he would die!
Why could he not write his message? What could he have to say to her? Was it not all said and laid away to be remembered, perhaps, and that was all? Then the memory of the old Felix swept over her, and she bowed her head and wept for him! She had held herself in her heart as his promised wife for six long weeks, how could she shrink from him? Was he not to her what no other man would ever become? Was she not to him the one best and dearest?
“I wonder,” she sobbed, “why he had to be the one to love me; why was not the love given to one whom I could love? Why must such a good and perfect gift as love be a burden to him and to me? If some one I know—”