“Archie, what was it last night? Why did they want you?”
Then he told her, as he had already told his wife, the sad ending of poor, simple Joe.
“It is a miserable business,” she returned. “Really, Archie, the morals which come at the end of life’s fables are pretty useless for those most concerned.”
On reaching home, Anne found a letter from Carington. He wrote:
That astonishing woman—Dorothy Maybrook—has spent most of her time with me. She calmly told Ellett to go a-fishing. He went. I have been admirably nursed, and, as you may suppose, have not lacked conversation. Who ‘p’ints’ Hiram, in her absence, I do not know.
There has been no news of the Colketts. It is but too probable that she killed the man, and got away in safety. I shall hereafter entertain a profound respect for the intelligence of crime.
It is great fun to hear Ellett and Dorothy. Do write to me—and say pleasant things to all of those dear, good people of yours. Tell Miss Rose I am not too badly crippled to ask for a new place as bowman.
The winter days went by, and, although the bridge was built, it seemed to need later much inspection, until, by ill fortune, there were bridges to build in Cuba, and thither Carington went in haste. It was therefore not until mid-June that he reached home again.
While busy with his bridge, and later, he had found himself often at Lyndsay’s table, and had come to be a welcome guest. And yet he seemed no nearer to the end he desired. One day, just after he had gone to the West Indies, Anne Lyndsay had said to Rose:
“I think that is a too patient man: I hate a man to be as patient as that. If I were he, I would go away and stay away.”
“How long will this state of things go on?”
“I do not know. I cannot be sure. I—aunty, one ought to be so very sure. It is for life! I think he understands me.”
“If he were to leave you, my dear, you would cry your eyes out.”
“Let me alone, Aunt. I had better be let alone.”
Then Aunt Anne, who was feebler than ever, said to herself, “Love is the only fruit which ripens in the spring.” But meanwhile Carington was away in Cuba, as we have said, and the spring came and went without results.
He found in his rooms in Boston, on his return, a letter from Miss Anne Lyndsay. He was depressed in spirits; the town was empty of all he knew, and more than ever he felt the want of a home. When last he saw Miss Rose, she was still, as always, pleasant, gay, and friendly. He had never yet seen fully the emotional side of a nature resolute by construction, and perfectly mistress of all the protective ways of the world of woman. Now and then the dim past of their life on the river seemed to him as if it had never been. More and more time, and the world appeared to be widening the distance between them, and yet once she had looked to be so near.