'It is a great surprise,' she said quietly. 'Won't you sit down?'

'The surprise ought to have been, that you did not see me before; not
that I am here now.'

'I got over _that_ surprise a great while ago,' said Esther. 'At least
I thought I did; but it comes back to me now that I see you. How was
it? How could it be?'

In answer to which, Pitt gave her a detailed account of his various
efforts in past years to discover the retreat of his old friends. This
was useful to him; he got his breath, as it were, which the sight of
Esther had taken away; was himself again.

Esther listened silently, with perfect faith in the speaker and his
statements, with a little undefined sort of regretfulness. So, then,
Pitt need not have been lost to them, if only they could have been
found! Just what that thought meant she had no time then to inquire.
She hardly interrupted him at all.

'What do you suppose became of your letters?' she asked when he had
done. For Pitt had not said that they went to his father's hands.

'I suppose they shared the fate of all letters uncalled for; if not the
dead-letter office, the fire.'

'It was not very strange that you could not find us when you came to
New York. We really troubled the post office very little, having after
a while nothing to expect from it, and that was the only place where
you could hope to get a clue.' Neither would Esther mention Mr. Dallas.
With a woman's curious fine discernment, she had seen that all was not
right in that quarter; indeed, had suspected it long ago.

'But you got some letters from me?' Pitt went on, 'while you were in
Seaforth? One or two, I know.'

'Yes, several. Oh yes! while we were in Seaforth.'

'And I got answers. Do you remember one long letter you wrote me, the
second year after I went?'

'Yes,' she said, without looking at him.

'Esther, that letter was worth everything to me. It was like a sunbeam
coming out between misty clouds and showing things for a moment in
their true colours. I never forgot it. I never could forget it, though
I fought for some years with the truth it revealed to me. I believed
what you told me, and so I knew what I ought to do; but I struggled
against my convictions. I knew from that time that it was the happiest
thing and the worthiest thing to be a saint; all the same, I wanted to
be a sinner. I wanted to follow my own way and be my own master. I
wanted to distinguish myself in my profession, and rise in the worl