My history of the affair at Glenarm has overrun the
bounds I had set for it, and these, I submit, are not
days for the desk and pen. Marian is turning over the
sheets of manuscript that lie at my left elbow, and demanding
that I drop work for a walk abroad. My
grandfather is pacing the terrace outside, planning, no
doubt, those changes in the grounds that are his constant
delight.
Of some of the persons concerned in this winter's
tale let me say a word more. The prisoner whom Larry
left behind we discharged, after several days, with all
the honors of war, and (I may add without breach of
confidence) a comfortable indemnity. Larry has made
a reputation by his book on Russia-a searching study
into the conditions of the Czar's empire, and, having
squeezed that lemon, he is now in Tibet. His father
has secured from the British government a promise of
immunity for Larry, so long as that amiable adventurer
keeps away from Ireland. My friend's latest letters to
me contain, I note, no reference to The Sod.
Bates is in California conducting a fruit ranch, and
when he visited us last Christmas he bore all the marks
of a gentleman whom the world uses well. Stoddard's
life has known many changes in these years, but they
must wait for another day, and, perhaps, another historian.
Suffice it to say that it was he who married us
-Marian and me-in the little chapel by the wall, and
that when he comes now and then to visit us, we renew
our impression of him as a man large of body and of
soul. Sister Theresa continues at the head of St. Agatha's,
and she and the other Sisters of her brown-clad
company are delightful neighbors. Pickering's failure
and subsequent disappearance were described sufficiently
in the newspapers and his name is never mentioned at
Glenarm.
As for myself-Marian is tapping the floor restlessly
with her boot and I must hasten-I may say that I am
no idler. It was I who carried on the work of finishing
Glenarm House, and I manage the farms which my
grandfather has lately acquired in this neighborhood.
But better still, from my own point of view, I maintain
in Chicago an office as consulting engineer and I have
already had several important commissions.
Glenarm House is now what my grandfather had
wished to make it, a beautiful and dignified mansion.
He insisted on filling up the tunnel, so that the Door of
Bewilderment is no more. The passage in the wall and
the strong box in the paneling of the chimney-breast
remain, though the latter we use now as a hiding-place
for certain prized bottles of rare whisky which John
Marshall Glenarm ordains shall be taken down only on
Christmas Eves, to drink the health of Olivia Gladys
Armstrong. That young woman, I may add, is now a
belle in her own city, and of the scores of youngsters all
the way from Pittsburg to New Orleans who lay siege
to her heart, my word is, may the best man win!