"Not while I lived," said Mr. Yorke, firmly. But from this time Mr. Yorke began to acquiesce in his wife's plans touching Mr. Lancaster.
Finally Alice herself began to yield. The influences were very strong, and were skilfully exerted. The only man who had ever made any lasting impression on her heart was, she felt, out of the question. The young school-teacher, with his pride and his scorn of modern ways, had influenced her life more than any one else she had ever known, and though under her mother's management the feeling had gradually subsided, and had been merged into what was merely a cherished recollection, Memory, stirred at times by some picture or story of heroism and devotion, reminded her that she too might, under other conditions, have had a real romance. Still, after two or three years, her life appeared to have been made for her by Fate, and she yielded, not recognizing that Fate was only a very ambitious and somewhat short-sighted mamma aided by the conditions of an artificial state of life known as fashionable society.
Keith wrote Alice Yorke a letter congratulating her upon her safe return; but a feeling, part shyness, part pride, seized him. He had received no acknowledgment of his last letter. Why should he write again? He mailed the letter in the waste-basket. Now, however, that success had come to him, he wrote her a brief note congratulating her upon her return, a stiff little plea for remembrance. He spoke of his good fortune: he was the agent for the most valuable lands in that region, and the future was beginning to look very bright. Business, he said, might take him North before long, and the humming-birds would show him the way to the fairest roses. The hope of seeing her shone in every line. It reached Alice Yorke in the midst of preparation for her marriage.
Alice Yorke sat for some time in meditation over this letter. It brought back vividly the time which she had never wholly forgotten. Often, in the midst of scenes so gay and rich as to amaze her, she had recalled the springtime in the budding woods, with an ardent boy beside her, worshipping her with adoring eyes. She had lived close to Nature then, and Content once or twice peeped forth at her from its covert with calm and gentle eyes. She had known pleasure since then, joy, delight, but never content. However, it was too late now. Mr. Lancaster and her mother had won the day; she had at last accepted him and an establishment. She had accepted her fate or had made it.
She showed the letter to her mother. Mrs. Yorke's face took on an inscrutable expression.
"You are not going to answer it, of course?" she said.
"Of course, I am; I am going to write him the nicest letter that I know how to write. He is one of the best friends I ever had."
"What will Mr. Lancaster say?"
"Mr. Lancaster quite understands. He is going to be reasonable; that is the condition."
This appeared to be satisfactory to Mrs. Yorke, or, at least, she said no more.