half-closed her eyes. That letter of Harold Merton's, more than a week old now though it was, kept obtruding itself insistently. It had come a few days after his last visit—a long letter begging her again, as he had done that day when they had trained the Virginia creeper together, and as he had done once more on that last evening after the drive, to go away for a little while at least, urging her to seek a change, new surroundings, new life, which he was sure would be of so much benefit to her. And he ended the letter by stating that business, a matter of importance, possibly entailing a long trip, forced him unexpectedly to leave Berley Falls that day—that he could not, therefore, give her any address then, but that a letter sent to Berley Falls would be forwarded.
She had not written. In a great measure it was a relief to her that he had gone. The frank, open friendship she had given him had never been the same since the day when he told her that he cared for her. He had kept his promise, it was true, and had not spoken again; but the knowledge of his feelings toward her, which she could never reciprocate, had brought a strained, unnatural note, on her side at least, into their subsequent companionship, imposing a restraint upon her lest she should unwittingly give him reason to believe that in time she might change toward him.
That last evening he had reverted again to the subject of her going away with what had seemed to her almost a strange eagerness and persistency. He had brought the warden into the discussion, converted him, and had almost persuaded him to pack her off instanter in spite of herself—and now her father had been urging it ever since.
