But I insisted; and at length he complied, enchanted to yield to my importunity. He opened the letter, and, as he broke the seal, his face was like morning. Never shall I forget the change that grew in it as he read. When he had finished his face was like starless night. He looked old, haggard, black, shrunken. I watched him with a sensation that something had gone wrong with my sight. Surely radiance was fully before me and my tricked vision saw it as despair. Raising his blank, bleak eyes from the letter, Hugh stared towards me and opened his lips. But no sound came from them. He frowned, as if in fury at his own dumbness. Then at last, with a sharp shake of his head sideways, he said in a low and dry voice:
“You know what is in this letter, you say?”
“I—I thought so,” I answered, growing cold and filled with anxiety.
“Well, read it, will you?”
I took the paper from his hand and read:—
“Dear Hugh,—Make the man who brings you this letter marry me. If you don't, I will kill myself; for I am ruined. Kate.”
I looked up at Hugh Fraser over the letter which my hand still mechanically held near my eyes. I wonder how long the silence through which we stared lasted.
A month later I was married to Kate Walters!