Once in every year or two, as opportunity took him near her home, he had called on her, and had multiplied each call mightily by thinking of it before and after. He had also kept up a stupid correspondence with a schoolmate who had lived in the same town with her, for the chance of her name being mentioned. Within a couple of years, however, she had lost her father and gone to relatives in New York, so he had lost exact knowledge even of her whereabouts.
She spoke before he had found his voice—without an instant’s hesitation, indeed. “Oh, Will Strong!” she cried, stepping quickly toward him and holding out her hand. “I hoped it was you!”
He took the offered hand, and said to himself that his own was consecrated by the touch to clean deeds forever. He would not have known how to address her, but he followed her leading.
“It is Winifred Northrop!” he said. “What is it? Can I do something for you?”
“You are school-committee man, are you not?” Anxiety, relief, and trust mingled in her voice.
“Trustee—yes. Why,” he cried, “it isn’t possible that you are the lady!”
She laughed. “I suppose the lady must be I.”
He did not smile. He even lost color with wrath. “Garvey has dared to play you some trick!—I did not dream—” he went on, eagerly, “Garvey kept the letters in his hands, and bungled over the name, so I did not once fairly catch it.”
He turned back to his corner, and put the remaining bit of proof into his pocket. New heavens and new earth had come into existence since the last pencil mark on it.
“Jim,” he said, “I’m called off on school-business. You get as much of that set up as you can before dinner, and then lock up; and I’ll come down and make the corrections in the editorials before I go to bed. Now—Winifred—if I may walk home with you, we’ll get to the bottom of Garvey’s tricks. Villain!”