mers. He rather
urged the gentility and comfort of the second cabin-passage, but his
reasons in favor of it were wasted upon Clementina's indifference;
she wished to get home, now, and she did not care how. She asked the
vice-consul to see the minister for her, and if he were ready and
willing, to telegraph for their tickets. He transacted the business so
promptly that he was able to tell her when he came in the evening that
everything was in train. He excused his coming; he said that now she
was going so soon, he wanted to see all he could of her. He offered no
excuse when he came the next morning; but he said he had got a letter
for her and thought she might want to have it at once.

He took it out of his hat and gave it to her. It was addressed in
Hinkle's writing; her answer had come at last; she stood trembling with
it in her hand.

The vice-consul smiled. "Is that the one?"

"Yes," she whispered back.

"All right." He took his hat, and set it on the back of his head before
he left her without other salutation.

Then Clementina opened her letter. It was in a woman's hand, and the
writer made haste to explain at the beginning that she was George W.
Hinkle's sister, and that she was writing for him; for though he was
now out of danger, he was still very weak, and they had all been anxious
about him. A month before, he had been hurt in a railroad collision,
and had come home from the West, where the accident happened, suffering
mainly from shock, as his doctor thought; he had taken to his bed at
once, and had not risen from it since. He had been out of his head a
great part of the time, and had been forbidden everything that could
distress or excite him. His sister said that she was writing for him now
as soon as he had seen Clementina's letter; it had been forwarded from
one address to another, and had at last found him there at his home in
Ohio. He wished to say that he would come out for Clementina as soon as
he was allowed to undertake the journey, and in the meantime she must
let him know constantly where she was. The letter closed with a few
words of love in his own handwriting.

Clementina rose from reading it, and put on her hat in a bewildered
impulse to go to him at once; she knew, in spite of all the cautions and
reserves of the letter that he must still be very sick. When she came
out of her daze she found that she could only go to the vice-consul. She
put the letter in his hands to let it explain i