"Yes, the Creswells told me yesterday. You see, Tom Creswell works in the post-office, and the postmaster showed him and the other clerks a letter that Mr. Cavanaugh was sending to John since he got back from New York. Then the postmaster showed him one answering it. The postmaster met Mr. Cavanaugh and asked him about it, and Mr. Cavanaugh told him that it was all a mistake about John and Dora being killed. He says John is doing well and looks well. Oh, I'm so glad--so glad! Ever since the report of that wreck it has been on my mind like a horrible dream. Night and day it would come up to haunt me. Don't you see, I thought-- I felt that if--if I had not gone away that day with my father John would have been alive. So now, you see, I haven't _that_ to think about. God spared him and Dora, and Mattie Creswell says they are both happily married." "Both?" Joel exclaimed. "You haven't got it right, Tilly. Dora married and left him all alone. Cavanaugh says John never married." "Never married?" Tilly's sweet lips hung quivering. "But Mattie Creswell says her brother told her that Cavanaugh said that John was married to a wealthy girl in high society." "It is my duty to tell you the truth," Eperson said, the look of death deepening on him. "He never married. He has been leading a strange, lonely life. I think I know why. You can guess." "_I_ can guess?" Tilly was pale and trembling as she leaned toward him. "Well, no, perhaps you can't," Joel corrected, "but I know why." "You know why?" Tilly's voice broke on the last word, and she stared at him eagerly, her sweet mouth drooping. "Yes, because no man who was once your husband even for the few days that you were his could ever marry any other woman." "You--you rate me too highly," Tilly faltered, putting her hands over her face. "Why, why, I've always thought that till his death he hated me for deserting him as I did when all the rest of the world was down on him." "He is no fool, and he was not even then, boy though he was. He knew why you went away so suddenly. Do you hear me? He simply acted as I would have done in his place. He endeavored to set you free from certain unbearable conditions, and that is what I would have done. In setting you free he rescued another girl from a life of degradation and despair, but that is neither here nor there. John Trott deserves credit, and I shall give it to him. Dead though you thought he was, he has always had your heart. I've seen that in a thousand things you have done and said. Your love for his mother was due to that, and God knows you've had your reward there, for you awakened an immortal soul and have earned its eternal gratitude and love. Don't think I am complaining, Tilly. I knew when you came to me that your heart was not mine. I've never been able to win it and I never shall."