slipped the note into my hand when he returned me the flowers. It was only a

line asking me to join him when he made the sign to me to do so. Of course I

never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now to him, and I determined

to do just whatever he might direct.


“When I got back I told my maid, who had known him in California, and had

always been his friend. I ordered her to say nothing, but to get a few things

packed and my ulster ready. I know I ought to have spoken to Lord St. Simon,

but it was dreadful hard before his mother and all those great people. I just

made up my mind to run away and explain afterwards. I hadn’t been at the

table ten minutes before I saw Frank out of the window at the other side of the

road. He beckoned to me and then began walking into the Park. I slipped out,

put on my things, and followed him. Some woman came talking something or other

about Lord St. Simon to me—seemed to me from the little I heard as if he

had a little secret of his own before marriage also—but I managed to get

away from her and soon overtook Frank. We got into a cab together, and away we

drove to some lodgings he had taken in Gordon Square, and that was my true

wedding after all those years of waiting. Frank had been a prisoner among the

Apaches, had escaped, came on to ’Frisco, found that I had given him up

for dead and had gone to England, followed me there, and had come upon me at

last on the very morning of my second wedding.”


“I saw it in a paper,” explained the American. “It gave the

name and the church but not where the lady lived.”


“Then we had a talk as to what we should do, and Frank was all for

openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I should like to

vanish away and never see any of them again—just sending a line to Pa,

perhaps, to show him that I was alive. It was awful to me to think of all those

lords and ladies sitting round that breakfast-table and waiting for me to come