"There is yet another battle for you to fight. I am going away. Please do not try to find out where, either by word or by deed.
"Golden Crescent will always be in my thoughts. Some day, maybe, I will come back.
"God bless you and keep you, and may you ever be my brave and very gallant gentleman.
"Mary Grant."
I read it over, and over again, but it seemed as if the words would never link themselves together in my brain and form anything tangible.
Gone away! Oh, God! Meaghan gone;—Mary gone;—every one to whom my heart goes out leaves me the same way. What is it in me? Oh, my God! my God!
I staggered against the veranda rail for support, then, like a blind man groping for a path in a forest, I made my journey across the rustic bridge, and home.
I am not ashamed to own it: in my anguish and my physical weakness, I threw myself upon my bed and sobbed; sobbed until my sorrow had spent itself, until my spirit had become numbed and well-nigh impervious to all feeling.
In desperation, I threw myself into my work.
Never was store kept so clean nor in such a well-stocked condition as mine was; never was home so tidy.