There are bound to be complications, I fear, in regard to this mock marriage of hers. I have consulted my attorneys here and they are not very certain that the ceremony was not genuine enough to require further legal steps to free her entirely. A suit for annulment is possible.
Please have the house at Brookhollow locked up and keep the keys in your possession for the present. Judge Gary will have the keys sent to you.
James, dear, I am very deeply indebted to you for giving to me my little friend, Ruhannah Carew. Now, I wish to make her entirely mine by law until the inevitable day arrives when some man shall take her from me.
Write to her, James; don’t be selfish.
Yours always,
Naïa.
The line enclosed from Ruhannah touched him deeply:
I cannot speak of it yet. Please, when you go to Brookhollow, have flowers planted. You know where our plot is. Have it made pretty for them.
Rue.
He wrote at once exactly the sort of letter that an impulsive, warm-hearted young man might take time to write to a bereaved friend. He was genuinely 142 grieved and sorry for her, but he was glad when his letter was finished and mailed, and he could turn his thoughts into other and gayer channels.
To this letter she replied, thanking him for what he had written and for what he had done to make the plot in the local cemetery “pretty.”