Part 37 (1/2)

”I'm not different. Who says I am different? It is you who are trying to make a fuss. I'm sure I do not care about your letter. Why should I?

Your father always seemed to think you needed no advice from any one.

Only don't imagine that I am blind. I _saw_ you with a letter.”

Having triumphantly secured the last word, she turned to busy herself with the tea-tray, and Esther, knowing the uselessness of argument, went on toward the house. Aunt Amy attempted to follow but was stopped by Mary.

”Amy, what did that doctor want here?”

”He came to see me.”

Mary laughed. ”Likely!” she said. ”This tea is quite cold. Was it he who left the letter for Esther?”

”Esther didn't have a letter. I had one.”

Again the incredulous laugh, and the dull red mounted into Aunt Amy's faded cheeks. She clutched the treasured letter tightly under her dress.

This mocking woman should never see it! But as she turned again to leave her, another consideration appealed to her unstable mind. Mary suspected Esther--and nothing would annoy her more than to find herself mistaken.

On impulse Aunt Amy flung the letter upon the tea-tray.

”There it is. Read it, if you like. It has nothing to do with Esther. Or any one else. I found it in one of your mother's old trunks.”

Left alone, Mary Coombe drank her tea, which after all was not very cold. She was not really interested in the letter, now that she had got it. Had not a vagrant breeze tossed it, obtrusively, upon her lap, she would probably not have looked at it.

Listlessly she picked it up, opened it, glanced at the firm, clear writing....

A sharp, tingling shock ran through her. It was as if some one had knocked, loudly, at dead of night at a closed door! That writing--how absurdly fanciful she was getting!

”Dearest wife,” she read, ”at last I can call you 'wife' without fear”--the vagrant breeze, which had tossed the letter into her lap, tossed it off again. Her glance followed it, fascinated!

Of course she had dreamed the writing? She had been terribly troubled by dreams of late. But what had Amy said about finding the paper in her mother's trunk? The whole thing was a fantastic nightmare. She had but to lean forward, pick up the letter, read it properly and laugh at her foolishness.

But it was a long time before she found the strength to pick it up. When she did, she read it quietly to the end with its scrawled ”H.” Then she read it over again, word by word. Her expression was one of terror and amaze.

When she had finished she looked up, over the pleasant garden, with blank eyes. Her face was ashen.

”He came,” she said aloud. ”He came! But--_what did she tell him when he came_?”

The garden had no answer to the question. Somewhere could be heard a girl's laugh and the sharp bark of a protesting puppy. Mary Coombe drew her hand across her eyes as if to clear them of film and, trying to rise, slipped down beside the elm-tree seat, a soft blot of whiteness on the green.

They found her there when they had finished was.h.i.+ng the puppy, but though she came quickly to herself under their eager ministrations, she would not tell them what had caused her sudden illness. To all their questionings she answered pettishly, ”Nothing! Nothing but the heat.”

CHAPTER XXI

When a man of thirty-five has at last shaken himself free from the burden of an unhappy love affair, he is not particularly disposed to welcome an emotional reawakening. He knows the pains and penalties too well; the fire of Spring, he has learned, can burn as well as brighten.

Callandar thought that he had done with love, and a growing suspicion that love had not done with him brought little less than panic. Upon the occasion of Willits' second visit he had begun to realise his danger and the professor never guessed how nearly he had persuaded him to leave Coombe. Some deep instinct was urging flight, but the impulse had come just a little bit too late. He could not go, because he wanted so very much to stay.

After Willits' departure he had deliberately tested himself. For five days he did not try to see Esther and upon the sixth he realised finally that seeing Esther was the only thing that mattered. Then had come the short interview under the elm tree--an interview which had shown him a new Esther, demure, adorable, with eyes which refused to look at him. He had come away from that meeting with a new pulse beating in his heart.

To doubt was no longer possible. He loved her.