His letter had wandered to yet another address--an address she had left
at the club weeks ago, the only address they had. From thence it had
reached the last house where she had been staying before she had come to
Wyndfell Hall. The wonderful thing was that the letter had reached her
at all. But she was very glad it had come, if only at long last.
After her letter was finished, she suddenly felt that she must put in a
word to account for the delay in her answer to what should have received
an immediate reply. And so she added a postscript, which, unlike most
women's postscripts, was of really very little importance--or so the
writer thought.
This unimportant postscript ran:
"Your letter had followed me round to about half-a-dozen places.
Bubbles Dunster and I have been spending Christmas in this
wonderful old house, Wyndfell Hall, our host being Lionel Varick.
He struck oil in the shape of an heiress two years ago. She died
last year; and he has become a most respectable member of society.
I know you didn't much like him, though he's often spoken to me
very gratefully of the good turn you did him years ago."
Blanche hesitated, pen in hand. Of course, it was not necessary that she
should mention the name of her host. She might rewrite the last page of
her letter, and leave the postscript out. It was unfortunately true
that Mark had taken a violent prejudice against the man he had
befriended to such good purpose years and years ago. She had been still
young then--young and, as she was quite willing to admit now, very
foolish. In fact, she looked back to the Blanche Farrow of those days,
as we are sometimes apt to look back at our younger selves, with
amazement and disapproval, rather than sympathy. But there was a streak
of valiant honesty in her nature. She let what had been written stand,
only adding the words:
"The party is breaking up to-morrow; but Bubbles, who had a
disagreeable accident yesterday, will stay on here for a few days
with me. All the same, I expect we shall be in London by the ninth;
and then, perhaps, you and I might meet."
It was by Bubbles' special wish--nay, command, that her engagement to
Bill Donnington was publicly announced that very morning, at breakfast,
by her aunt. Everyone was much interested, and said the usual
good-natured, rather silly, civil things; hence Blanche was glad Bill
Donnington had breakfasted early, and so was not there.
Helen Brabazon was extremely excited and delighted at the news. "I
suppose it happened yesterday morning!" she exclaimed. "For, of course,
they haven't seen one another alone since then. If they were already
engaged, what awful agony poor Mr. Donnington must have gone through
while you were trying to bring her to life again?"
She turned to Panton, and he answered thoughtfully, "I could see he was
most terribly upset. Don't you remember how he refused to go up to the
house and change his wet clothes?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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