I
Two days after the funeral, which had taken place from Calvary, and not
from St. John's, Hodder was no little astonished to receive a note from
Eldon Parr's secretary requesting the rector to call in Park Street. In
the same mail was a letter from Alison. "I have had," she wrote, "a talk
with my father. The initiative was his. I should not have thought of
speaking to him of my affairs so soon after Preston's death. It seems
that he strongly suspected our engagement, which of course I at once
acknowledged, telling him that it was your intention, at the proper time,
to speak to him yourself.
"I was surprised when he said he would ask you to call. I confess that
I have not an idea of what he intends to say to you, John, but I trust
you absolutely, as always. You will find him, already, terribly changed.
I cannot describe it--you will see for yourself. And it has all seemed
to happen so suddenly. As I wrote you, he sat up both nights, with
Preston--he could not be induced to leave the room. And after the first
night he was different. He has hardly spoken a word, except when he sent
for me this evening, and he eats nothing . . . . And yet, somehow,
I do not think that this will be the end. I feel that he will go on
living. . . . .
"I did not realize how much he still hoped about Preston. And on Monday,
when Preston so unexpectedly came home, he was happier than I have known
him for years. It was strange and sad that he could not see, as I saw,
that whatever will power my brother had had was gone. He could not read
it in the face of his own son, who was so quick to detect it in all
others! And then came the tragedy. Oh, John, do you think we shall ever
find that girl again?--I know you are trying but we mustn't rest until we
do. Do you think we ever shall? I shall never forgive myself for not
following her out of the door, but, I thought she had gone to you and Mr.
Bentley."
Hodder laid the letter down, and took it up again. He knew that Alison
felt, as he felt, that they never would find Kate Marcy . . . . He
read on.
"My father wished to speak to me about the money. He has plans for
much of it, it appears, even now. Oh. John, he will never understand.
I want so much to see you, to talk to you--there are times when I am
actually afraid to be alone, and without you. If it be weakness to
confess that I need your reassurance, your strength and comfort
constantly, then I am weak. I once thought I could stand alone, that
I had solved all problems for myself, but I know now how foolish I was.
I have been face to face with such dreadful, unimagined things, and in my
ignorance I did not conceive that life held such terrors. And when I
look at my father, the thought of immortality turns me faint. After you
have come here this afternoon there can be no longer any reason why we
should not meet, and all the world know it. I will go with you to Mr.
Bentley's.
"Of course I need not tell you that I refused to inherit anything. But
I believe I should have consented if I possibly could have done so. It
seemed so cruel--I can think of no other word--to have, to refuse at such
a moment. Perhaps I have been cruel to him all my life--I don't know.
As I look back upon everything, all our relations, I cannot see how I
could have been different. He wouldn't let me. I still believe to have
stayed with him would have been a foolish and useless sacrifice . . .
But he looked at me so queerly, as though he, too, had had a glimmering
of what we might have been to each other after my mother died. Why is
life so hard? And why are we always getting glimpses of things when it
is too late? It is only honest to say that if I had it to do all over
again, I should have left him as I did.
"It is hard to write you this, but he actually made the condition of my
acceptance of the inheritance that I should not marry you. I really do
not believe I convinced him that you wouldn't have me take the money
under any circumstances. And the dreadful side of it all was that I had
to make it plain to him--after what has happened that my desire to marry
you wasn't the main reason of my refusal. I had to tell him that even
though you had not been in question, I couldn't have taken what he wished
to give me, since it had not been honestly made. He asked me why I went
on eating the food bought with such money, living under his roof? But I
cannot, I will not leave him just yet . . . . It is two o'clock. I
cannot write any more to-night."