and guessed what was in his mind. If Richard
had needed any confirmation of his suspicions, that look on transparent
Aunt Barbara's face would have confirmed them. There had been something
between Ethelyn and Frank Van Buren more than a cousinly liking, and
Richard's heart throbbed powerfully as he sat by the tossing, restless
Ethelyn, moaning on about the huckleberry hills, and the ledge of rocks
where the wild laurels grew. This pain he did not try to analyze; he
only said to himself that he felt no bitterness toward Ethelyn. She was
too near to death's dark tide for that. She was Ethie--his darling--the
mother of the child that had been buried from sight before he came.
Perhaps she did not love him, and never would; but he had loved her, oh!
so much, and if he lost her he would be wretched indeed. And so,
forgiving all the past of which he knew, and trying to forgive all he
did not know, he sat by her till the sun went down, and his mother came
for the twentieth time, urging him to eat. He had not tasted food that
day, and faint for the want of it he followed her to where the table had
been set, and supper prepared with a direct reference to his
particular taste.

He felt better and stronger when supper was over, and listened eagerly
while Andy and Eunice, who had been the last with Ethelyn before her
sudden illness, recounted every incident as minutely and reverently as
if speaking of the dead. Especially did he hang on what Andy said with
reference to her questioning him about the breaking of a wicked vow, and
when Eunice added her mite to the effect that, getting up for some
camphor for an aching tooth, she had heard a groan from Ethelyn's room,
and had found her mistress bending over a half-finished letter, which
she "reckoned" was to him, and had laid away in the portfolio, he waited
for no more, but hurried upstairs to the little bookcase where Eunice
had put the treasure--for it was a countless treasure, that unfinished
letter, which he read with the great tears rolling down his cheeks, and
his heart growing tenfold softer and warmer toward the writer, who
confessed to having wronged him, and wished so much that she dare tell
him all. What was it she had to tell? Would he ever know? he asked
himself, as he put the letter back where he found it. Yes, she would
surely tell him, if she lived, as live she must. She was dearer to him
now than she had ever been, and the lips unused to prayer, save as a
form, prayed