Write as if it were of your own accord. Don't _explain_ in the letter.

Letters are such hard, unsatisfactory things. The best one you could write wouldn't make up to him a bit for what he's suffered and what he must go on suffering, for you couldn't help studying your words, and they'd be stiff and disappointing, no matter how hard you tried to say the things just right. Ask him to come here and let you explain in your own words why you seemed so harsh. Only, warn him that it isn't to change your mind about--about saying _yes_. It would be awful to rush up here happy and hopeful, only to find out--what he'll have to find out."

"You don't understand," said Angela. "I care too much to dare see him again. I couldn't trust myself. I----"

"Ah, but you could trust _him_. He's strong and high in his nature--like the great redwoods."

"Yes, like the great redwoods," Angela echoed, in a whisper.

"He'd be a rock, too--a rock to rely upon," Sara went on. "Do this, Mrs.

May. Do it for my sake. I know it's the right thing. It will give him back his self-respect. That's even more important than happiness, especially to him. I've done all I could for you--not much, but my best. Do this for me, will you?"

"Yes, I will!" Angela answered suddenly and impulsively. She put out her hands to the little school-teacher and drew her close. They kissed each other, the two women who loved Nick Hilliard.

x.x.xII

AN END--AND A BEGINNING

"Come to me if you can. I can give you no hope of happiness, but there is something I should like to explain," Angela said in her letter.

She expected an answer, though she asked for none; but no word came on the morning when she had thought that she might hear. Other people had their letters and were reading them on the veranda, but there was nothing for her. She sat there for a while, cold with disappointment, listening to the tearing open of envelopes and the pleasant crackle of thick letter-paper.

Then, when Timmy, the black cat, suddenly leapt off her lap, as if in a mad rush after something he fondly hoped was a mouse, Angela was glad of an excuse to follow. But Timmy, who was of an independent character, evidently believed that he was in for a good thing. He darted across the gra.s.s, and with a whisk of eager tail disappeared behind a clump of trees.

"A dragon-fly!" Angela said to herself. For Timmy could not resist the fascination of dragon-flies--a bright and beautiful kind that spent the summer at Lake Tahoe. She followed round the clump of trees, and there was Nick Hilliard coming toward her with Timmy in his arms.

"Oh!" she cried, "I--I thought----"

"I was afraid you'd think it was too early," said Nick as quietly as possible, though his voice shook. "I got in on the train; and after my bath I was taking a walk around, till a decent time to call. Then Timmy came running to welcome me----"

"I believe he must really have seen you!" cried Angela, grateful to Timmy, who was saving them both the first awkwardness of the situation. "He is the most extraordinary cat--quite a super-cat. And you remember, he used always to know what time you were coming to call when we were in San Francisco."

Owing to Timmy, they were spared a meeting on the veranda, and Angela did not offer to take her visitor into the house yet.

There were some quiet places in the garden in the deep shadow of trees, where she could say what she had to say better than between four walls.

They strolled on, Nick holding Timmy, who purred loudly, as if glad to welcome the giver of his jade collar.

"I got your letter just in time to catch the train for San Francisco, and then to get on here," Hilliard explained. "Of course, you knew I'd come at once."

"No--I wasn't sure. I thought--I might hear from you this morning--a telegram or letter," Angela stammered. "But--I'm glad, very glad. It was good of you to come, and so soon."

"Good!"

"I wanted so much to talk to you. I've been wanting it for a long time.

Ever since--we parted. But it was only the other night I made up my mind that I had any right to send for you."

"What did I say to you that last day about coming from the end of the world? It's only a step from Lucky Star here."

"I know what you said. There isn't one word I've forgotten. Shall we sit under that arbour? It's my favourite seat, and no one ever disturbs me."

They sat down on a rustic bench curtained with trails of Virginia creeper, red as the blood of the dying summer. Nick kept Timmy on his knee, stroking the glossy back. His hand looked very strong and brown, and Angela longed to s.n.a.t.c.h it up and lay it against her cheek. How she loved him! How much more even than she had known when she couldn't see his face, his eyes and the light there was in his eyes for her! It had not changed, that wonderful light, though his face was sadder, and, she thought, thinner.

"Are you glad to see me again--Nick?" she could not resist asking.

He smiled at her wistfully. "Just about as glad as a man would be to see G.o.d's sunlight if he'd been in prison, or starving in a mine that had fallen in on him. Only perhaps a little gladder than that."

She answered him with a look; and then, as involuntarily she put out her hand to stroke Timmy, their fingers met. He caught hers, held them for an instant, and let them go.

"Nick, that day when you saved my life and told me you loved me, did I make you realize that I loved you, too?" she asked.

"No. I couldn't think you meant that. I thought you tried to save my feelings by saying you cared; that you were sorry for me, and----"

"I was sorry for myself, because, you see, you'd begun to be the one person in the whole world who mattered. Oh, wait; don't speak yet! I had to make you understand that we couldn't be anything to each other, and it was so hard for me, that often I've wondered if, inadvertently, I said things to hurt you more than you need have been hurt. Tell me, truly and frankly, what did you believe I meant by that word I used--'_impossible_'?"

He hesitated, then answered slowly: "I felt that I ought to have known, without your telling me, I wasn't the sort of man for you."

"You did think that! Oh, Nick, then I'm glad I sent for you--I can't help being glad. If you loved me, and I were free, nothing in the world could come between us, and I should be the happiest creature on earth."

"If you were free?" His hand lay heavily on Timmy's back, and the cat resented it by jumping down. But both had forgotten Timmy's existence and their late grat.i.tude to him.

"If I were free. You thought I was--you saw me in mourning. I never meant to make you, or any one, believe a lie. All I thought of at first was getting away from the old life. But, oh, Nick, though I'm not a widow, I was never any man's wife except in name. I'm Franklin Merriam's daughter--you must have heard of him. And when I was seventeen I married Prince Paolo di Sereno. That very day I found out there was--some one who had more right to him that I had. She came, and threatened to kill herself. You see, it was not me, it was money he cared for. But he hated me for saying I would be his wife only in the eyes of the world. That made him so angry, that he has spent his life since in taking revenge. When my mother died, nearly a year ago, I made up my mind to leave him altogether, and I did as soon as I could. I gave him more than half the money, so he didn't care, for he'd grown quite indifferent; and I took the name of 'May.' It is one of my names really. I was so glad to be some one else and come to a new country to begin a new life! It never entered my head that I could fall in love with any one--that there might be complications in my plan. It seemed so simple. All I wanted was peace and a quiet life, with a few kind people round me. Then--_you_ came. At first I didn't realize what was happening to me--for it had never happened before. But soon I might have seen if I hadn't closed my eyes and drifted. I was happy. I didn't want you to go out of my life. Then came the Yosemite, with you, and--I couldn't close my eyes any more. I saw my own heart. I thought--I saw yours. Now you understand, Nick, why I told you it was impossible for you and me to be anything more to each other than friends. It was you who said we couldn't be friends. And you know--I _want_ you to know--that it's as hard for me as it can be for you, because I love you."

She had hurried on to get it all over, not daring to look at him until just at the end. When he did not speak she had to look at last, and see his bowed head--the dear black head that she loved.

"Oh!" she murmured. "I ought never to have gone with you to the Yosemite.

If I hadn't, you would have forgotten me by this time--perhaps."

"No," said Nick. "I'd not have forgotten you. Not if I'd never seen you again after that first day in New York. You see, you were my ideal. Every man has one, I guess. And I just recognized you, the first minute, in the hall of the hotel. I didn't expect to know you--and yet, somehow, it was as if I couldn't let you go--even then. _Have_ I got to let you go, now, after what you've told me? You're not the wife of that man--that prince, except in law. You don't love him, and you do love me--you say you do.

Why, that makes you already more mine than his."

"Heart and spirit, I'm all yours," Angela said. "Oh, Nick, I don't love you, I worship you, you--_man!_ I never thought there were men like you. I don't believe there are any more. Paolo di Sereno is--a mere husk."

"Divorce him," Nick implored. "You've got cause."

"He's Italian," she answered. "So am I, as his wife, in the eyes of the law. He and his people don't recognize divorce, even if I----"

"But here----" Nick began, then stopped, and shut his lips together. No, he would not propose that. Angela guessed what he had wanted to say, and loved him better for not saying it.

"I used to think," she went on hastily, "that I knew the worst of being married to a man without love. But now I see I didn't know half. A woman can't know till she loves another man. Oh, Nick, I can't get on without you--not _quite_ without you. I've been trying--and every day it grows harder instead of easier. Nothing _matters_--but you. I'm not Paolo di Sereno's real wife, and he hates me. So it's not wrong to love you, Nick, or for you to love me. Only, we--we----"

"You don't have to get on without me," said Nick. "My angel one, you needn't be frightened. Wait till I tell you. I'll go away--this minute if you tell me to. I'll do whatever you say, because what you say will be right for _you_, and that's the important thing. What I mean is--I'm always there. My love can't change, except to grow bigger and brighter--and make me more of a man--so you won't have to worry about hurting _me_. Once I told you we couldn't be friends, but now I know you better, and what you've got in your heart for me--and what stands between us--I take that back. A friend can worship his friend. I worship you. I _will_ be your friend, angel, in the biggest sense of the word."

"Oh, thank you, Nick," she cried. "Thank you a thousand times. Now I can live again--just thinking--as you say--that you're _there_. The world can't be blank. But you must go. I--I don't think I could bear this long, and keep true--to myself--and----"

It was the same with Nick. He had felt that he could not bear this long and be true either to himself or to her. Yet he would have stayed if she had bidden him stay, and fought for his manhood against odds. "Am I to go--now?" he asked.

"Yes--oh, please, yes!" she begged him, holding out her hands. "I am keyed up to bear it now. It might be different later. But--let us write to each other, Nick. I'll write little things every day--that I think and feel.