She felt so glad that she had loved him in spite of that horrible story! Her soul leaped with exultation. She would not be obliged to marry Wainsworth, to forget. She would never forget! She would wait for Adam now—if need be till Judgment Day itself!
She kissed Adam’s writing again. She fondled it lovingly. It restored him. It gave her back her right to love him. It was too much to think upon or to try to express.
She had only half read it; the sense of the story had escaped her grasp. It had been enough that Adam was guiltless. Her breath came fast; the color had flamed to her cheeks. Her eyes were glowing with the love which she had welcomed home to her throbbing heart.
She had risen, unable to control herself, so abruptly and unexpectedly had the discovery come upon her. Now she sat down again at the table and read the letter more carefully. It was such a sad little story.
“Unfortunately I sprained my ankle, and this delayed me,” she read, where Adam had written. She pictured him now, limping through the forest, with the little brown child, and her heart yearned over his suffering, his patience and his self-sacrifice in coming back to the cruel fate in store for him, there in Boston.
She thought of him then in the prison. She blessed the instinct of love which had made her go to his aid. He was not an outlaw. He was not a renegade. He was her own Adam.
Then she thought of the moment in which she had sent him away. After all the heart-breaking trials he had already endured, she had added the final cruelty. She remembered how he had limped, when she saw him starting off, just before she had fainted at the window, that terrible night. Longing to call him back, now, and to cry out her love,—that had never died,—her trust, which should now endure for ever, and her plea to be forgiven, she fancied she heard him again saying: “Garde! Garde!—not forever?” and she felt a great sob rising in her throat.
“Oh, Adam!” she said, as if from the depths of her heart.
The hot tears, of joy and sadness blended, suddenly gave vent to the pent-up emotions within her. They rolled swiftly down across her face and splashed in great blots on the writing.