Just then Mr. Howard and some others joined them, and after a little playful bantering about the flirtation of two such steady old persons, a remark or two on the fine night and the beauty of the ocean scene, the party moved off and Edda at last was alone.
That night, when Mr. and Mrs. Martin stopped at Edda’s room door, on their way to bed, they found her sitting at her desk writing. She kissed them, bade them good night, and thanked them for their affectionate inquiries, in a more cheerful manner than she had shown for months, which gladdened their silly, warm old hearts, and they went off comforting themselves with the hope that all now would be well.
“Yes, my dear,” said Mr. Martin, as he composed himself to sleep, “you were right—Edda is getting over it. She looked and talked more brightly than she has since poor little Martin’s death.”
And Edda really felt so, but for a reason her uncle little suspected. Mrs. Howard’s words had given form and impulse to her thoughts; she no longer wasted time in mere actionless grief; she saw her duty before her, and, hard as it was to perform, she nobly resolved to do it. A day or so afterward, as Ralph Murray was leaving town for his new western home—sad, lonely, and for the first time feeling that maybe in the past he had not been entirely free from blame, he received a letter, directed in the delicate, lady-like, hand-writing of his wife. With trembling hands he opened it, and thick, short sobs swelled up in his throat and hot tears sprang to his eyes, as he read her childish, frank, penitent appeal.
“I am your wife, Ralph,” she wrote; “you must not leave me—you must take me with you. God joined us, and trouble—death has bound us still closer. Pardon my past waywardness, and take your penitent, suffering Edda back to your heart. Think what a reckless, thoughtless, uncontrolled child I was when you married me, and have patience with me. I cannot live without you, Ralph. I shall die broken-hearted if you treat my selfish, wayward conduct as it merits. God forgives the penitent—will you be more just than He is, my beloved? Come to me, and let me hear from your lips once more, ‘dear Edda.’ Do not tell me you are poor; I can live on any thing, submit to any privation, if blessed with your presence, your forgiveness, your love. You shall not find me in the future a thoughtless, extravagant child, but, with God’s help, a faithful good wife. Oh, Ralph, receive me once more, I pray you, and let me be again your own darling little wife Edda.”