Dissatisfied, unhappy, and restless, as I now really was, I did not even feel like writing at night. I now no longer ran up-stairs to my room, with an eager, wishful heart, hoping that he might be there. Alas! I felt sure he had abandoned me forever. He had even ceased, I told myself, to be interested in me.
Then one night he came. I had had a hard day at the yards. Not hard in the sense of work; but Fred was to leave the following day, and a Mr. Hopkins was to take his place. We had spent the day going over all the matters of our department, and it's impossible for me to say how utterly wretched I felt at the thought of working under another "boss" than Fred.
So I came home doleful enough, went out and ate my solitary dinner in a nearby restaurant, and then returned to the house.
He called, "Hello, little girl!" while I was opening the door.
I stood speechlessly staring at him for a moment, so glad was I to see him. It seemed an incredible and a joyous thing to me that he was really there, and that he appeared exactly the same—tall, with his odd, tired face and musing eyes.
"Well, aren't you glad to see me?" he asked, smiling, and holding out his hand.
I seized it and clung to it with both of mine, and I wouldn't let it go. That made him laugh again, and then he said:
"Well, what has my wonderful girl been doing?"
That was nearly always his first question to me.
"I wrote to you four times," I said, "and you never answered me once."