CHAPTER III.
MAGDALEN'S first glance round the empty room showed her the letter on
the table. The address, as the doctor had predicted, broke the news the
moment she looked at it.
Not a word escaped her. She sat down by the table, pale and silent, with
the letter in her lap. Twice she attempted to open it, and twice she put
it back again. The bygone time was not alone in her mind as she looked
at her sister's handwriting: the fear of Kirke was there with it. "My
past life!" she thought. "What will he think of me when he knows my past
life?"
She made another effort, and broke the seal. A second letter dropped out
of the inclosure, addressed to her in a handwriting with which she was
not familiar. She put the second letter aside and read the lines which
Norah had written:
"Ventnor, Isle of Wight, August 24th.
"MY DEAREST MAGDALEN—When you read this letter, try to think we have
only been parted since yesterday; and dismiss from your mind (as I have
dismissed from mine) the past and all that belongs to it.
"I am strictly forbidden to agitate you, or to weary you by writing
a long letter. Is it wrong to tell you that I am the happiest woman
living? I hope not, for I can't keep the secret to myself.
"My darling, prepare yourself for the greatest surprise I have ever
caused you. I am married. It is only a week to-day since I parted with
my old name—it is only a week since I have been the happy wife of
George Bartram, of St. Crux.
"There were difficulties at first in the way of our marriage, some of
them, I am afraid, of my making. Happily for me, my husband knew from
the beginning that I really loved him: he gave me a second chance of
telling him so, after I had lost the first, and, as you see, I was wise
enough to take it. You ought to be especially interested, my love, in this marriage, for you are the cause of it. If I had not gone to Aldborough to search for the lost trace of you—if George had not been brought there at the same time by circumstances in which you were concerned, my husband and I might never have met. When we look back to our first impressions of each other, we look back to you.
"I must keep my promise not to weary you; I must bring this letter
(sorely against my will) to an end. Patience! patience! I shall see you
soon. George and I are both coming to London to take you back with us to
Ventnor. This is my husband's invitation, mind, as well as mine. Don't
suppose I married him, Magdalen, until I had taught him to think of you
as I think—to wish with my wishes, and to hope with my hopes. I could
say so much more about this, so much more about George, if I might only
give my thoughts and my pen their own way; but I must leave Miss Garth
(at her own special request) a blank space to fill up on the last
page of this letter; and I must only add one word more before I say
good-by—a word to warn you that I have another surprise in store, which
I am keeping in reserve until we meet. Don't attempt to guess what it
is. You might guess for ages, and be no nearer than you are now to the
discovery of the truth. Your affectionate sister,
"NORAH BARTRAM."
(Added by Miss Garth.)
"MY DEAR CHILD—If I had ever lost my old loving recollection of you, I should feel it in my heart again now, when I know that it has pleased God to restore you to us from the brink of the grave. I add these lines to your sister's letter because I am not sure that you are quite so fit yet, as she thinks you, to accept her proposal. She has not said a word of her husband or herself which is not true. But Mr. Bartram is a stranger to you; and if you think you can recover more easily and more pleasantly to yourself under the wing of your old governess than under the protection of your new brother-in-law, come to me first, and trust to my reconciling Norah to the change of plans. I have secured the refusal of a little cottage at Shanklin, near enough to your sister to allow of your seeing each other whenever you like, and far enough away, at the same time, to secure you the privilege, when you wish it, of being alone. Send me one line before we meet to say Yes or No, and I will write to Shanklin by the next post.
"Always yours affectionately,
"HARRIET GARTH"
The letter dropped from Magdalen's hand. Thoughts which had never risen
in her mind yet rose in it now.