Love stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
“Thank you very much for your most kind letter and for all that you
have said and left unsaid. I too had a dull journey from New York and
found London duller still. As a town it seems to have fallen off; but
it will brighten up again I am sure before long! I am glad you are all
well. I suppose your party will re-unite after Mrs. Ogilvie’s cure has
been completed. It is strange how we are all taking to motor cars. I
am myself getting one, and I hope in the early summer to have some
lovely drives. I am looking out for a companion. But it is a difficult
thing to get exactly the one you want, and without such it is lonely
work. Even going the utmost pace possible could not keep one’s mind
away from the want. When I went to America that time I was feeling
lonely and dull; and I have felt lonelier and duller ever since. But
when I get my motor I hope all that will shortly cease. I hope that
when you arrive--if you and Mrs. Ogilvie do come over--that you will
honour my car by riding in it. I shall hope to have some one with me
whom you must like very much--you seem to like nice people and nice
people seem to be fond of you. I greatly fear it will not be possible
for me to see Colonel Ogilvie in London, for I have to be away very
shortly on some business, and I probably shall not be back in time;
but I am going up North in a few weeks--in my new car if it is
ready--and I shall hope to see my friends. Perhaps Colonel Ogilvie and
some of his friends will come for a drive with me. Won’t you let me
know where he will be staying after he leaves London. Please give, if
occasion serves, my warm remembrance to all. I have not forgotten that
delightful conversation we had before tea the day I called. Tell Miss
Joy that I wish we could renew and continue it. Miss Ogilvie must be a
very happy girl to have, in addition to such nice parents who love her
so much, an aunt like you so much her own age, so sympathetic, so
understanding. I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for
writing. I look eagerly for another letter.
“Believe me,
Yours very sincerely.”
There he hesitated. He had meant never to write again the name Richard
Hardy. Here the letter seemed to demand it. He had already thought the
matter over in all ways and from all points of view and had, he
thought, made up his mind to go through with the fraud as long as it
was absolutely necessary. There was no other way. But now when he had
to write out the lie--as it appeared to him to be--his very soul
revolted at it. It seemed somehow to dishonour Joy. Since he had
looked into the depth of her eyes, scruples had come to him which had
not ever before troubled him. It was unworthy of her, and of himself,
to continue a lie. And so with him began again the endless circle of
reasoning on a basis of what was false.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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