A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill

								

“I got it at the station this noon,” he said. “Thought I'd be over
earlier, but didn't know if you wanted me.”
She did not hear him, the letter had come! Her fingers thrilled at its
touch, and the warm blood surged to her heart. Without another thought
for Noah, she sped up the walk to the house, where she locked herself
into the living-room. Match after match sputtered and went out in her
nervous fingers, before the lamp was lighted.
He had written! He cared! He was coming! Over and over she whispered the
words to herself. Then she looked at the postmark on the heavy envelope,
and her heart sank. San Francisco! After all he was not coming back!
Her eager finger was at the seal, when her eyes fell upon a briar-wood
pipe that lay on the table beside a half-filled pouch of tobacco. In an
instant she seemed to see a stubby brown hand reaching for it, the quick
spurt of the match, the flare of light on an old weather-beaten face,
then a deep-drawn breath of contentment as the Colonel settled back and
held out his other hand to his little girl.
And her last promise to him had been to do nothing until Donald's name
should be cleared. She could keep her promise now, but could she after
she had read Donald's letter? If the mere touch of it in her hand plead
for him, what would the living words do?
She looked hopelessly around the cheerful, homely room, every foot of
which spoke to her of her father, and of his love for her. On the white
door-frame were penciled the proud records he had made of her height
on each successive birthday. On the walls were pictures of her he had
treasured, from the time she was a round-eyed baby, to the present day.
In the cupboard was a green box containing her first shoes, her little
dresses, her first letter, her baby curls.
Over the harpsichord was a portrait of the Colonel himself, painted
before she was born. It represented a dashing, young sportsman,
surrounded by his pack of hounds. Twenty years ago this gallant hunter
had given up the chase, with many another joy, to minister to her
baby needs, to share her joys and sorrows, and be father, mother,
play-fellow, all in one.
She clasped Donald Morley's letter tightly and closed her eyes. Never
in her short life had she wanted to do anything so desperately as
she wanted to read that letter, and yet the reading of it would mean
breaking a promise to one whom she could never promise anything again.
Her newly awakened love and her sense of justice pleaded hotly for
Donald, but the empty room and her empty heart, and a passionate sense
of loyalty to the dead, spoke mutely for her father.
After all, nothing could justify those long days of silence, that
failure on Donald's part to come to her in her trouble. Her father's
judgment was probably right after all, and it was best she should put an
end to the matter once and for all.
Sobbing like a child, she kissed the letter again and again, and
kneeling by the fire, held it to the flame, and watched it burn to ashes