Richard could not get over that epithet. He would have forgiven the
other sin almost as soon as this, and his face was very dark and stern
as he watched Ethelyn reading the little note. She knew in a moment what
it was, and the suddenness of its appearance before her turned her white
and faint. It brought back so vividly the day when she received it--six
or seven years ago, the lazy September day, when the Chicopee hills wore
the purplish light of early autumn, and the air was full of golden
sunshine. It was a few weeks after the childish betrothal among the
huckleberry hills, and Frank had come up to spend a week with a boy
friend of his, who lived across the river. There was to be an exhibition
in the white schoolhouse, in the river district, and Frank had written,
urging her to come, and asking that Aunt Barbara should be left
behind--"the old maid," he sometimes called her to his cousin, thinking
it sounded smart and manlike. Aunt Barbara had stayed at home from
choice, sending her niece in charge of Susie Granger's mother; but the
long walk home, after the exercises were over, the lingering, loitering
walk across the causeway, where the fog was riding so damply, the
stopping on the bridge, and looking down into the deep, dark water,
where the stars were reflected so brightly, the slow climbing of the
depot hill, and the long talk by the gate beneath the elms, whose long
arms began to drop great drops of dew on Ethie's head ere the interview
was ended--all this had been experienced with Frank, whose arm was
around the young girl's waist, and whose hand was clasping hers, as with
boyish pride and a laughable effort to seem manly, he talked of "our
engagement," and even leaped forward in fancy to the time "when we
are married."
All this came back to Ethelyn, and she seemed to feel again the breath
of the September night, and see through the clustering branches the
flashing light waiting for her in the dear old room in Chicopee. She
forgot for a moment the stern, dark face watching her so jealously, and
so hardening toward her as he saw how pale she grew, and heard her
exclamation of surprise when she first recognized the note, and
remembered that in turning over the contents of the ebony box she must
have dropped it upon the floor.
"Do you still deny all knowledge of Frank's presence in town?" Richard
asked, and his voice recalled Ethelyn from the long ago back to the
present time.