waiting, that we just did it right there; and then Frank went off to seek his

fortune, and I went back to Pa.


“The next I heard of Frank was that he was in Montana, and then he went

prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of him from New Mexico. After that

came a long newspaper story about how a miners’ camp had been attacked by

Apache Indians, and there was my Frank’s name among the killed. I fainted

dead away, and I was very sick for months after. Pa thought I had a decline and

took me to half the doctors in ’Frisco. Not a word of news came for a

year and more, so that I never doubted that Frank was really dead. Then Lord

St. Simon came to ’Frisco, and we came to London, and a marriage was

arranged, and Pa was very pleased, but I felt all the time that no man on this

earth would ever take the place in my heart that had been given to my poor

Frank.


“Still, if I had married Lord St. Simon, of course I’d have done my

duty by him. We can’t command our love, but we can our actions. I went to

the altar with him with the intention to make him just as good a wife as it was

in me to be. But you may imagine what I felt when, just as I came to the altar

rails, I glanced back and saw Frank standing and looking at me out of the first

pew. I thought it was his ghost at first; but when I looked again there he was

still, with a kind of question in his eyes, as if to ask me whether I were glad

or sorry to see him. I wonder I didn’t drop. I know that everything was

turning round, and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee

in my ear. I didn’t know what to do. Should I stop the service and make a

scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and he seemed to know what I was

thinking, for he raised his finger to his lips to tell me to be still. Then I

saw him scribble on a piece of paper, and I knew that he was writing me a note.

As I passed his pew on the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him, and he