t even yet
Elizabeth would not quite give up the cause. She steadied herself a
little by her hand on the back of the chair before she sat down in it,
asking with the smile still on her lips, but not spontaneous as before.

"You have brought good news?"

"No," he said. "I am afraid you will not call it good news." He looked
away as he spoke, but after a moment turned toward her, and their eyes
met. Each read the meaning in the other's face too plainly to make
reserve as to the real state of things possible. "The cause of all this
cruel delay is explained at last," he went on. "The Sea-Gull on her way
back to England was wrecked. All Bolston's papers are lost. He had a
fever brought on by cold and exposure, and after he had lain for weeks
in an Irish inn, he waked into life with scarcely his sense of identity
come back to him. He writes that he has begun to recover himself,
however, and that by the time we send the papers again, new copies, he
shall be able to attend to the business as well as ever. For our work,
he might as well be at the bottom of the sea."

Elizabeth turned pale.

"When did you learn this?" she asked.

"A fortnight ago. I ought to have told you of it before, but I hated to
pain you."

She looked at him firmly. Then smiled a little through her paleness.

"Yes, it does pain me," she said. "But I don't despair. We are not
married, you and I, Mr. Archdale, and I wish Katie would throw aside her
nonsensical scruples. What matter whether Mr. Harwin was a minister? Why
will she not let it go that it was all fun, and marry you? I think she
ought."

"I think so, too," he said. He did not add his suspicions that Katie was
acting upon the covert suggestions of his father which had so disturbed
her conscience that she declared she must be satisfied that the whole
thing was a falsehood of Harwin's.

"I wish we could find him," said Elizabeth.

"So do I", answered Archdale under his breath. She looked at him quickly
and away again, feeling that her last wish had not been a wise one.
"Yet" pursued Archdale, "you see that if Harwin's story is false, the
whole matter drops there, and that would make it simpler, to say the
least of it. Katie does not like the idea of having the court obliged to
decide about it. She says it seems like a divorce."

Elizabeth flushed.

"Do I like it?" she said. "But anything is better than this."

"Yes," he answered, then seemed as if he would like to take back his
frank c