“I mean—I made myself as happy as a woman can be who is not married to the man she loves.”
He had felt, when she looked at him so strangely, that he was on the brink of some new knowledge. He almost dreaded what that knowledge might be—dreaded the pain it might bring. He had hardly grasped her meaning yet.
“Claire! Then why—why——? Good God——!”
She released the hand that he had clung to, and unfastened the little gold key that hung from her wrist. She took the inlaid box on her knees and opened it, Stephen watching her every movement. The box was lined with red velvet and contained a single letter, yellow with age. She took it out, delicately, and turned it over in her fingers so that he saw both sides of it. It was unopened. The heavy seal on the flap of the envelope was unbroken. She gave him the letter without a word.
He studied it for a moment.
“My writing!” he exclaimed. “Claire, what is this? What letter is this?”
“That letter,” she said gently, putting a hand on his arm, “is a proposal from the man I loved.”
He looked at her, uncomprehending.
“I will tell you about it,” she said.
“Fifty-six years ago, Stephen, when that letter was written, I had two admirers. Oh, more, perhaps but only two that counted. They were you and Robert. Robert was serious and clever, and very much in love with himself, and you were—everything that the heart of a girl like me could desire. You were friends, you two; you were rivals, but friends for all that. You were the better lover, Robert the more ingenious wooer. Robert out-maneuvered you. It was he who got most of my dances at balls, but it was always you I longed to give them to. It was Robert who won the approval of my mother and father; it was you who won mine. He was said to be a coming young man. They told me that you lacked ambition and force—even in those days people talked about force—but it was you I loved. You told my father that you wanted to marry me, and he said you were too young for me. You were only twenty-two, and I was twenty-three. He persuaded you to make the Grand Tour before settling anything. You told him you would not go without speaking to me. And you tried to speak to me—how often you tried!—but we were never left alone in those days. My mother was fearful, for Robert, and Robert was fearful for himself. So there were always interruptions. You were almost maddened by them, and I—I was eating my heart out. If you could only have passed me on the stairs and whispered, ‘Marry me!’ I would have said ‘Yes.’ But the chance never came. And I—little fool—was too shy to make it. And then, on the very eve of your Grand Tour, you wrote me this letter.