And this note was sent by a messenger duly instructed to ask
for an answer. The news the messenger brought back was somewhat
disappointing. The lady was away, but the letter would be forwarded to
her. "She is not married," I thought; "were she married her name would
be sent to me.... Perhaps not." Other thoughts came into my mind, and
I did not think of her again for the next two days, not till a long
telegram was put into my hand. Doris! It had come from her. It had
come more than a thousand miles, "regardless of expense." I said,
"This telegram must have cost her ten or twelve shillings at the
least." She was delighted to hear from me; she had been ill, but was
better now, and the telegram concluded with the usual "Am writing."
The letter that arrived, two days afterwards, was like herself, full
of impulse and affection; but it contained one phrase which put black
misgiving into my heart. In her description of her illness and her
health, which was returning, and how she had come to be staying in
this far-away Southern town, she alluded to its dulness, saying that
if I came there virtue must be its own reward. "Stupid of her to speak
to me of virtue," I muttered, "for she must know well enough that it
was her partial virtue that had separated us and caused this long
estrangement.
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