He nodded, wiped his forehead with his soiled handkerchief, pushed down his tattered straw hat and went down the steps with a careful tread. Uncle Cephas was an old man—his age had come upon him suddenly. Marion watched him as he walked away; it was easier to look at the load of hay, the hayfield beyond the parsonage garden, easier to look at anything, and think of anything excepting that foreign letter. Why should Don write to her? He had not written for five long years, not once since that letter about Judith from Genoa. Was it because she had—refused him? During all these years it never once entered her thoughts that she had refused him. He did ask her to become his wife—if _that_ were asking. And she had refused, if that were refusing. “Can you have dinner in half an hour?” Roger asked, coming to the open window near the sink. “I only this minute remembered that I promised King to drive over this afternoon to talk his parish difficulties over with him. His housekeeper has gone, did I tell you? He’s keeping house by himself—has been trying it a month, or I’d take you and Judith for the drive; he would not relish your seeing his house-keeping. Don’t hurry too much; give me a cold dinner with a cup of coffee.” “I’ll ring the bell in half an hour; Judith will help me,” she replied, hearing the sound of her own voice with every word she spoke. The words she was speaking did not touch her own life—nothing was in her life but that letter in her hand; she had as much of it as she could bear just now, she thought she would hide it away and never open it. It was another thing to die and be buried. Judith came and began to set the dinner table and to tell her the last pretty thing Nettie Evans said—Marion moved absently about the kitchen; the letter was pushed down in her dress pocket. When at last she could bear the suspense no longer, she asked Judith to boil the eggs, and to bring the rice pudding from the cellar, and went up stairs to her own chamber and shut the door. If she did not have to bear this—if only it had not come to disturb her peace—she was satisfied without it. It was a long letter; it was full of something, her heart was beating so fast and choking her that she read sentence after sentence without gathering any thought or incident; it was words, words, words. “I expect to sail for home next month; I am tired of being a stranger and a foreigner. You have never written to me beyond those two words; but I know what you have been to my Cousin Judith. I think I have grown old since you saw me; life has grown old if I have not. I know from the letters of Roger and Judith that you are just the same. Unless you are just the same I would not care to see you again. Your old friend, Don.”