“No, no!” she faintly pleaded; “let me stand awhile. And do you—do you think it’s well for you to sit—just here?”
“Why, yes,” he returned. “It seems a sufficiently salubrious spot, and this is a most obliging rock. If you won’t share it with me—here!” he said, touching another stone in front of his own seat, “sit here! Then I can see your face whenever I look up, and that will be better even than having you at my side. Ah! Now for the letters,” he cried, when she had suffered him to arrange her as he would, and she gave them into his hand.
He ran them quickly over before opening any, and, “Why!” he exclaimed, holding up one of them, “did you know whom we have kept waiting? Gilbert! It’s too bad, poor old fellow! Didn’t you notice his letter, you incurious Fatima?”
“I never saw his handwriting. How could I know his letter?”
“Of course! That might have occurred to me if I hadn’t known it so well myself. Never mind! We’ll keep Gilbert a little longer, since we’ve kept him so long already, and have him last of all, to take away the bad taste, if these are not pleasant reading.” He laid Gilbert’s letter aside, and opened the others and commented on them one after another; but her eyes continually wandered to the unopened letter, do what she might to keep them on the level of the page he was reading. At last he took up Gilbert’s letter; a shiver ran through her as he tore open the envelope, and she drew herself closer together.
“Why, are you cold, my dear?” he asked, glancing at her before he began to read. “Aren’t you well? Let us go up to the house, and read the letter there.”
“No, no,” she answered, steadily; “I’m not cold, I’m perfectly well. I was curious to know what he said; that was all. Do go on.”
Easton opened the sheet, and began to read to himself, as people often do with letters when they propose to read them aloud. “Oh!” he said, presently, “excuse me! I didn’t know what I was doing. Do you think you’ll be able to stand all this?” He held up the eight pages of Gilbert’s letter, and then he began faithfully with the date, and read on to the end. The first part of the letter was given to Gilbert’s regrets at not having been able to write before. He took it for granted that his sister-in-law had told Easton of his sudden call to go to South America on that business of Mitchell & Martineiro, who wished him to look after some legal complications of their affairs in Brazil, which needed an American lawyer’s eye; and that she had made all amends she could for his going so suddenly.
You were asleep [he wrote] when I went to take leave of you, and on the whole I’m not sorry. A good-by is good at any distance, and I knew I could send you mine. I didn’t suppose I should be so long about it; but the truth is that what with putting my own business in order before going, and instructing myself about Mitchell & Martineiro’s, in a case where I can represent their interests only in an exterior sort of way, I have not had a moment that I could call yours. I might have sent you a line, of course, but I waited till I could do more than that. I knew you were getting well, and I need not worry about leaving you before you were quite well. And now, after all, when I have a few hours before sailing, and I sit down to write to you, I do not know that I have much to say. Perhaps if I had had days before this, it would have come to the same thing. In fact, it could have come only to one thing under any circumstances. It could have come only to my telling you, with whatever force I had, that in all our recent unhappiness I felt myself wholly and solely at fault. I do not merely mean that you were blameless, but that everyone else but myself was so. I hope this will not come to your eye like an impertinence; it lies under mine like a very vital thing. I do not know what your measure of my blame is, whether it has grown greater or not since we parted; but in my own sight my treatment of you seems inexpiable. Of course I feel that in this separation of ours there are many chances that we may not meet again; but I should like to say this to you if we were to meet every day all our lives. I will not appeal to the kindness of your heart; there ought to be none for me in it. But do not forget me, Easton; and if ever in the future you can think more leniently of me than I deserve, I shall be glad of your pity.
“Is that all?” asked Mrs. Farrell, hoarsely.