“You forget that I am a reader of character—that no kindred souls are strangers even at a first meeting, my son.”
Buell Hampton spoke very softly but very clearly; his gaze rested fixedly on Roderick; the latter felt a thrill run through him—yes, assuredly, this great and good man had been his friend from the first moment they had clasped hands.
“You were very good then, Major,” he replied, “in judging me so kindly. But I am afraid that I evoked your special sympathy and interest because of the confidences I gave you at one of our early meetings. You will not have forgotten how I spoke in a most sacred way about certain matters in Galesburg and what I intended to do when I had sufficient money to carry out my plans.”
“I remember distinctly,” said the Major. “Your frank confidence greatly pleased me. Well, has anything happened?”
“There is just one man on earth I will show this letter to, and you, Major, are the man.”
Saying this Roderick handed over Stella Rain’s letter.
After the Major had carefully perused it and put it back in the envelope, he reached across to Roderick.
“No,” said Roderick, “don’t give that letter back to me. Kindly lay it on the red coals and let me see it burn to gray ashes. I have fought this thing out all alone up in the hills, and I am now almost glad that letter came, since it had to be. But let it vanish now in the flames, just as I am going to put Stella Rain forever out of my thoughts. Yesterday the receipt of this letter was an event; but from now on I shall endeavor to regard it as only an incident.”
Silently and musingly the Major complied with Roderick’s request and consigned the letter to the glowing embers. When the last trace had disappeared, he looked up at Roderick.
“I will take one exception to your remarks,” he said. “Do not think unkindly of Stella Rain, nor even attempt to put her out of your thoughts. Her influence over you has been all for good during the past months, and she has shown herself a very fine and noble woman in the gentle manner in which she has broken the bonds that had tied you—bonds impulsively and all too lightly assumed on your part, as she knew quite well from the beginning. I have a profound admiration for your little ‘college widow,’ Roderick, and hold her in high esteem.”