Part 28 (2/2)

But”--here he looked critically over my blue and buff, from c.o.c.kade to boot-tops--”you don't get any uniform on me, and I don't join any regiment. I'd take my chance in the woods first. It suits you to a 't,'

but it would gag me from the first minute.”

We talked thus until we reached the Cedars. I left Enoch and the escort without, and knocked at the door. I had to rap a second time before Molly Wemple appeared to let me in.

”We were all up-stairs,” she said, wiping her hot and dusty brow with her ap.r.o.n, ”hard at it! I'll send her down to you. She needs a little breathing-spell.”

The girl was gone before I could ask what extra necessity for labor had fallen upon the household this sultry summer afternoon.

Daisy came hurriedly to me, a moment later, and took both my hands in hers. She also bore signs of work and weariness.

”Oh, I am _so_ glad you are come!” she said, eagerly. ”Twice I have sent Tulp for you across to your mother's. It seemed as if you never would come.”

”Why, what is it, my girl? Is it about the letter from--from----”

”You know, then!”

”Only that a letter came to you yesterday from him. The messenger--he is an old friend of ours--told me that much, nothing more.”

Daisy turned at this and took a chair, motioning me to another. The pleased excitement at my arrival--apparently so much desired--was succeeded all at once by visible embarra.s.sment.

”Now that you are here, I scarcely know why I wanted you, or--or how to tell you what it is,” she said, speaking slowly. ”I was full of the idea that nothing could be done without your advice and help--and yet, now you have come, it seems that there is nothing left for you to say or do.” She paused for a moment, then added: ”You know we are going back to Cairncross.”

I stared at her, aghast. The best thing I could say was, ”Nonsense!”

She smiled wearily. ”So I might have known you would say. But it is the truth, none the less.”

”You must be crazy!”

”No, Douw, only very, very wretched!”

The poor girl's voice faltered as she spoke, and I thought I saw the glisten of tears in her eyes. She had borne so brave and calm a front through all her trouble, that this suggestion of a sob wrung my heart with the cruelty of a novel sorrow. I drew my chair nearer to her.

”Tell me about it all, Daisy--if you can.”

Her answer was to impulsively take a letter from her pocket and hand it to me. She would have recalled it an instant later.

”No--give it me back,” she cried. ”I forgot! There are things in it you should not see.”

But even as I held it out to her, she changed her mind once again.

”No--read it,” she said, sinking back in her chair; ”it can make no difference--between _us_. You might as well know all!”

The ”all” could not well have been more hateful. I smoothed out the folded sheet over my knee, and read these words, written in a loose, bold character, with no date or designation of place, and with the signature scrawled grandly like the sign-manual of a duke, at least:

”Madam:--It is my purpose to return to Cairncross forthwith, though you are not to publish it.

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