“I suppose it is. I don’t know, really.”
“You’ll know some day. And you mustn’t ever think of yourself as mercenary. You’re too wonderful for that—too—too fine——”
She realized in that moment that the boy was in earnest. That he was not saying pretty things to her for the sake of saying them. He was saying them all in sincerity. “It is nice of you to believe in me. But you don’t know me. I am like the little girl with the curl. I can be very, very good, but sometimes I am ‘horrid.’”
“You can’t make me think it.” He handed her a packet of letters. “Your uncle sent these. There’s one from Simms on top.”
“I think I won’t read it. I won’t read any of them. It has been heavenly to be away from things. I feel like a disembodied spirit, looking on but having nothing to do with the world I have left.”
They were smiling now. “I can believe that,” Baldy said, “but I think you ought to read Simms’ letter. You needn’t tell me you haven’t any curiosity.”
“Well, I have,” she broke the envelope. “More than that I am madly curious. I wouldn’t confess it though to anyone—but you.”
“They can cut me up in little pieces—before I break my silence.”
Again they laughed together. Then she broke the seal of the letter. Read it through to herself, then read it a second time aloud.
“Now that it is all over, Edith, I want to tell you how it happened. I know you think it is a rotten thing I did. But it would have been worse if I had married you. I am in love with another woman, and I did not find it out until the day of our wedding.
“She isn’t in the least to blame, and somehow I can’t feel that I am quite the cad that everybody is calling me. Things are bigger sometimes than ourselves. Fate just took me that morning—and swept me away from you.
“It isn’t her fault. She wouldn’t go away with me, although I begged her to do it. And she was right of course.
“She is poor, but she isn’t marrying me for my money. The world will say she is—but the world doesn’t recognize the real thing. It has come to me, and if it ever comes to you, you’re going to thank me for this—but now you’ll hate me, and I’m sorry. You’re a beautiful, wonderful woman—and I find no excuse for myself, except the one that it would have been a crime under the circumstances to tie us to each other.
“In spite of everything,
“Faithfully,
“Del.”