ord, and moved
toward the hall door.

"Stop!" I cried; "I beg a thousand pardons! Take it--take it! You are
the right messenger!"

She clutched it, and was instantly gone.

Several days passed, and I gradually became so nervous and uneasy that I
was on the point of inserting another "Personal" in the daily papers,
when the answer arrived. It was brief and mysterious; you shall hear
the whole of it.

"I thank you. Your letter is a sacred confidence
which I pray you never to regret. Your
nature is sound and good. You ask no more
than is reasonable, and I have no real right to refuse.
In the one respect which I have hinted, _I_
may have been unskilful or too narrowly cautious:
I must have the certainty of this. Therefore, as a
generous favor, give me six months more! At
the end of that time I will write to you again.
Have patience with these brief lines: another
word might be a word too much."

You notice the change in her tone? The letter gave me the strongest
impression of a new, warm, almost anxious interest on her part. My
fancies, as first at Wampsocket, began to play all sorts of singular
pranks: sometimes she was rich and of an old family, sometimes
moderately poor and obscure, but always the same calm, reposeful face
and clear gray eyes. I ceased looking for her in society, quite sure
that I should not find her, and nursed a wild expectation of suddenly
meeting her, face to face, in the most unlikely places and under
startling circumstances. However, the end of it all was
patience--patience for six months.

There's not much more to tell; but this last letter is hard for me to
read. It came punctually, to a day. I knew it would, and at the last I
began to dread the time, as if a heavy note were falling due, and I had
no funds to meet it. My head was in a whirl when I broke the seal. The
fact in it stared at me blankly, at once, but it was a long time before
the words and sentences became intelligible.

"The stipulated time has come, and our hidden
romance is at an end. Had I taken this resolution
a year ago, it would have saved me many
vain hopes, and you, perhaps, a little uncertainty.
Forgive me, first, if you can, and then hear the
explanation!

"You wished for a personal interview: _you have
had, not one, but many_. We have met, in society,
talked face to face, discussed the weather, the
opera, toilettes, Queechy, Aurora Floyd, Long