The morning after their arrival in Saratoga, when they were walking in Congress Park, Mary had pointed out John to her, and she remembered that he had seemed to her very old. Of course, he was not really old; she knew now that he was just forty; but she was only twenty herself, and at first sight he had impressed her as an elderly man. That evening he came over to their hotel to call on Mr. Morton, and he was presented to her.

Mary had been telling her how his wife had died the summer before, and how he had been inconsolable; and so she could not help sympathizing with him, nor could she deny that he had seemed to be taken with her from the beginning. Instead of talking to Mr. Morton or to Mary, he kept turning to her and asking her opinion. Before he got up to go he had invited them all to go down to the lake with him the next day for a fish dinner. Twenty-four hours later he had asked her to drive with him alone, and while she was wavering Mary had accepted for her; and really she did not see why she should not go with him. She had liked him from the first, he was so quiet and reserved, and then he had been so lonely since the death of his wife. On Sunday he had taken her to church; and the next morning he had moved over to their hotel. She had been afraid that Mary might tease her; but she did not care, for she was getting to like to have him attentive to her. She had made up her mind not to pay any regard to anything Mary might say. What Mary did say was to ask her to stay on another fortnight. She wondered now what would have happened if her father had refused his permission. As it was, she remained in Saratoga two weeks longer--and so did John, though Mr. Morton said that the senior partner of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron had lots of things to do in New York. Then Mary used to smile and to tell her husband that Mr. Blackstock had more pressing business on hand in Saratoga than in New York.

At last they all started for home again, and John had come with them as far as Albany. When he held her hand just as the car was going and said good-by, it was rather abruptly that he asked her if he might come and see her at Norwich--and he had blushed as he explained that he might be called there soon on important business.

As the picture of this scene rose before the eyes of the young bride she smiled again. She knew now what she had guessed then--that she was the important business that was bringing the senior partner of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron to Norwich. When he came up the next Sat.u.r.day and had made the acquaintance of her father and mother she began to think that perhaps he was really interested in her. She spent the next twenty-four hours in a strange dream of ecstasy; and when he walked home with her after the evening service she knew that she had found her fate most unexpectedly. As they neared her father's door he had asked her if she were willing to trust her future to him, and she had answered solemnly that she was his whenever he might choose to claim her.

Although she had said this, she was taken aback when he had wished her to be married early in September. She had had to beg to have the wedding postponed till the end of October, a.s.suring him that she could not be ready before then. Now, as she sat there rocking silently in the sitting-room of his house in New York, with a smile of happiness curving her lips, and as she recalled the swiftness of time's flight during the few weeks of her engagement, she did not regret that his neglected business would keep him in town all winter and that the promised trip to Europe was postponed until next summer. They had gone on their brief wedding journey to Niagara and Montreal and Quebec; and they had returned only the day before. Last night for the first time had she sat at the head of his table as the mistress of his house. For the first time that morning had she poured out his coffee in their future home, smiling at him across the broad table in the dingy dining-room with its black horsehair chairs.

Then he had sent for a cab, and he had insisted on her coming down to the office with him. It was the first time that she had seen the immense building occupied by Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron, with the packing-cases piled high on the sidewalk and with half a dozen drays unloading the goods just received from Europe. Although two or three of the clerks were looking at him when he got out of the cab, he had kissed her; and although she supposed she must have blushed, she did not really object. She was John's wife now, and it did not matter who knew it. He had called to the driver to come back so that he might tell her to stop anywhere she pleased on her way up-town and to buy anything she fancied.

She had come straight home without buying anything, for, of course, she was not going to waste John's money.

All the same the house was very old-fashioned, and it sadly needed to be refurnished. John was rich, and John was generous with his money; and she felt sure he would let her do over the house just as she pleased.

Then her thoughts went back to the days when she had been sent to a boarding-school in New York to finish her education and to the afternoon walks when she and the other girls, two by two, had again and again pa.s.sed in front of that very house; and now it was her home for the rest of her life. It was hers to brighten and to beautify and to make over to suit herself. She did not want to say a word against John's first wife, but it did seem to her that the elder woman had lacked taste at least.

The wall-papers and the hangings were all hopeless, and the furniture was simply prehistoric. The drawing-room looked as though n.o.body had ever dared to sit in it; and it was so repellent that she did not wonder everybody kept out of it.

Probably his first wife was a plain sort of person who did not care to entertain at all; perhaps she was satisfied with the narrow circle of church work. The young woman remarked how her mind kept on returning to her predecessor. She was ready to confess that this was natural enough, and yet it made her a little impatient nevertheless. Her eyes filled with tears when she thought of the swiftness with which a woman is forgotten when once she is dead.

She went to the window of the sitting-room and looked down on Gramercy Park again. The November twilight was settling down, and the rays of the setting sun were obscured by a heavy bank of gray clouds. The wind had risen and was whirling the dead leaves in erratic circles. Rain was threatened and might come at any minute. The day that had begun in glorious sunshine was about to end in gloom. The young bride was conscious of a vague feeling of loneliness and homesickness; she found herself longing for John's return.

As she turned away she heard the front door close heavily. With the swift hope that her husband might have come home earlier than he had promised, she flew to the head of the stairs. She was in time to see the butler gravely bowing an elderly gentleman into the drawing-room.

Disappointed that it was not John, she went back to the sitting-room and dropped into the rocking-chair by her old desk. She wondered who it was that hastened to call on her the day after her home-coming.

A minute later the butler was standing before her with the salver in his hand and a card on it.

She took it with keen curiosity.

"Dr. Thurston!" she cried. "Did you tell him Mr. Blackstock was not home yet?"

"Yes, m'am," the butler responded; "and he said it was Mrs. Blackstock he wished to see particularly."

"Oh, very well," she returned. "Say I will be down in a minute."

When the butler had gone, she ran to the tall mirror and readjusted her hair once more and felt to make sure that her belt was in position on her lithe young waist. She was glad that she happened to have on a presentable dress, so that she need not keep the minister waiting.

As she slowly went down-stairs she tried in vain to guess why it was that Dr. Thurston wanted to see her particularly. She knew that John had had a pew in Dr. Thurston's church for years and that he was accustomed to give liberally to all its charities. She had heard of the beautiful sermon the doctor had preached when John was left a widower, and so she almost dreaded meeting the minister for the first time all alone. She lost a little of her habitual buoyancy at the fear lest he should not like her. When she entered the drawing-room--which seemed so ugly in her eyes then that she was ready to apologize for it--the minister greeted her with a reserved smile.

"I trust you will pardon this early visit, Mrs. Blackstock--" he began.

"It is very good of you to come and see me so soon, Dr. Thurston," she interrupted, a little nervously, as she dropped into a chair.

"It is a privilege no less than a duty, my dear young lady," he returned, affably, resuming his own seat, "for me to be one of the first to welcome to her new home the wife of an old friend. There is no man in all my congregation for whom I have a higher regard than I have for John Blackstock."

The young wife did not quite like to have her husband patronized even by the minister of his church, but smiled sweetly as she replied, "It is so kind of you to say that--and I am sure that there is no one whose friendship John values more than he does yours, Doctor."

The minister continued gravely, as though putting this compliment aside.

"Yes, I think I have a right to call your husband an old friend. He joined my church only a few months after I was called to New York, and that is nearly fifteen years ago--a large part of a man's life. I have observed him under circ.u.mstances of unusual trial, and I can bear witness that he is made of sterling stuff. I was with him when he had to call upon all his fort.i.tude to bear what is perhaps the hardest blow any man is required to submit to--the unexpected loss of the beloved companion of his youth."

Dr. Thurston paused here; and the bride did not know just what to say.

She could not see why the minister should find it necessary to talk to her of the dead woman, who had been in her thoughts all the afternoon.

"Perhaps it may seem strange to you, Mrs. Blackstock," he went on, after an awkward silence, "that I should at this first visit and at this earliest opportunity of speech with you--that I should speak to you of the saintly woman who was John Blackstock's first wife. I trust that you will acquit me of any intention of offending you, and I beg that you will believe that I have mentioned her only because I have a solemn duty before me."

With wide-open eyes the bride sat still before him. She could not understand what these words might mean. When her visitor paused for a moment, all she could say was, "Certainly--certainly," and she would have been greatly puzzled to explain just what it was she wished to convey by the word. A vague apprehension thrilled her, for which she could give no reason.

"I will be brief," the doctor began again. "Perhaps you are aware that the late Mrs. Blackstock died of heart failure?"

The bride nodded and answered, "Yes, yes." She wanted to say "What of it? And what have I to do with her now? She is dead and gone; and I am alive. Why cannot she leave me alone?"

"But it may be you do not know," Dr. Thurston continued, "that she herself was aware of the nature of her disease? She learned the fatal truth two or three years before she died. She kept it a secret from her husband, and to him she was always cheerful and hopeful. But she made ready for death, not knowing when it might come, but feeling a.s.sured that it could not long delay its call. She was a brave woman and a devout Christian; and she could face the future fearlessly. Then, as ever, her first thought was for her husband, and she grieved at leaving him alone and lonely whom she had cared for so many years. If she were to die soon her husband would not be an old man, and perhaps he might take another wife. This suggestion was possibly repugnant to her at first; but in time she became reconciled to it."

The bride was glad to hear this. Somehow this seemed a little to lighten the gloom which had been settling down upon her.

"Then it was that the late Mrs. Blackstock, dwelling upon her husband's second marriage, decided to write a letter to you," and as the minister said this he took an envelope from his coat pocket.

"To me?" cried the young wife, springing to her feet, as though in self-defense. Her first fear was that she was about to learn some dread mystery.

"To you," Dr. Thurston answered calmly--"at least to the woman, whoever she might be, whom John Blackstock should take to wife."

"Why--" began the bride, with a little hysteric laugh, "why, what could she possibly have to say to me?" And her heart was chilled within her.

"That I cannot tell you," the minister answered; "she did not read the letter to me. She brought it to me one dark day the winter before last; and she besought me to take it and to say nothing about it to her husband; and to hand it myself to John Blackstock's new wife whenever they should return from their wedding trip and settle down in this house."

Then Dr. Thurston rose to his feet and tendered her the envelope.

"You want me to read that?" the bride asked, in a hard voice, fearful that the dead hand might be going to s.n.a.t.c.h at her young happiness.

"I have fulfilled my promise in delivering the letter to you," the minister responded. "But if you ask my advice, I should certainly recommend you to read it. The writer was a good woman, a saintly woman; and whatever the message she has sent you from beyond the grave, as it were, I think it would be well for you to read it."

The young wife took the envelope. "Very well," she answered, "since I must read it, I will."

"I am conscious that this interview cannot but have been somewhat painful to you, Mrs. Blackstock," said the minister, moving toward the door. "Certainly the situation is strangely unconventional. But I trust you will forgive me for my share in the matter--"

"Forgive you?" she rejoined, finding phrases with difficulty. "Oh yes--yes, I forgive you, of course."

"Then I will bid you good afternoon," he returned.

"Good afternoon," she answered, automatically.

"I beg that you will give my regards to your husband."

"To my husband?" she repeated. "Of course, of course."

When Dr. Thurston had gone at last, the bride stood still in the center of the drawing-room with the envelope gripped in her hand. Taking a long breath, she tore it open with a single motion and took out the half-dozen sheets that were folded within it. She turned it about and shook it suspiciously, but nothing fell from it. This relieved her dread a little, for she feared that there might be some inclosure--something that she would be sorry to have seen.

With the letter in her hand at last, she hesitated no longer; she unfolded it and began to read.

The ink was already faded a little, for the date was nearly two years old. The handwriting was firm but girlishly old-fashioned; it was perfectly legible, however. This is what the bride read: