Perhaps it was the brooding over the past and the pain and remorse that
wore upon Pansy until she fell ill and had that long fever, although
some of the little household declared that it was something she had
read in a Southern paper.
When Colonel Falconer, who had grown uneasy because his last letter to
Pansy was not answered, came suddenly back to San Diego, he found that
the girl had been ill of a brain fever for several weeks.
The mistress of the boarding house, who had been very kind to the sick
girl, explained everything as well as she could:
“She had been looking droopy an’ peaked some time, an’ her appetite no
better than a baby’s, when she kem inter the parlor one Sunday after
church, an’ set down to read. All at once she screamed out, an’ fell
in a faint. She had this paper in her hand, an’ I’ll allus believe
she read something in it that was bad news to her. But I’ve read it
through an’ through, and I can’t guess what ’tis. Maybe you kin.”
She put the newspaper in his hand--one almost two months old. It was a
daily paper, published at Richmond, Virginia.
“I do not think anything in this could have affected her. She was from
Kentucky. Where did she get this?” he asked.
“Some transient boarder must have left it, I think. It had been laying
around on the parlor table several days when she picked it up.”
He went over the paper carefully--the deaths, the marriages--but he
saw nothing about any one by the name of Wilcox. There was a society
column, and he went over that, too, although he did not expect to find
anything relating to her, for she had been very careful to impress
upon his mind, with a sort of proud humility, that she belonged to the
humble walks of life.
“Ah!” he exclaimed suddenly.
“You’ve found it?” exclaimed Mrs. Scruggs.
“Oh, no, nothing relating to her,” he answered quickly.
The paragraph that had surprised him was this:
Norman Wylde has returned from his long sojourn abroad, and his
much-talked-of marriage to the beautiful Miss Ives will take place
very soon.
Major Falconer knew both parties very well, but he had never spoken of
them to Pansy. He forgot both almost immediately in his anxiety over
the sick girl.
“Mrs. Scruggs, I wonder if I might see her? I am a very old friend,” he
said.
“She is sitting up a little while to-day. I know she would be glad to
see you,” was the answer, and she immediately conducted him to Pansy’s
room.
The sick girl was so surprised that she uttered a cry of joy. Her blue
eyes lighted with pleasure.
“Oh, I am so glad!” she exclaimed impulsively.
Mrs. Scruggs went quietly out. He knelt down by her side and kissed her
little hands with the ardor of a younger lover.
Yes, all his prudent resolves had melted before his joy at seeing her
again, and his pity for her suffering. Gently, so as not to startle her
from him, he told her of his love, and begged her to be his wife.
“I am old enough to be your father, I know; but my heart is young, and,
then, I could take such good care of you, my darling,” he said.
“Oh, you are too good to me, and I--I could not love you enough,” she
faltered.
“I would teach you to love me,” he answered. And she had such a deep
regard for him that it seemed to her that it would be very easy to
learn that lesson.