Chapter 3

Neil heard of the letter’s arrival from Mrs. Bedloe. He went to Mrs.
North and tried once more to intercede for Daphne. The mother was
inexorable. She gave Neil the letter, and told him that she had packed
up all Daphne’s belongings and would send them to her, but no word
should go from her with them. Neil, finding all his pleading vain, wrote
a letter to Daphne himself. He told her frankly of her mother’s
attitude, but assured her that she would always find a true friend in
him. If her mother relented in time he would let her know; and if she
ever needed assistance of any kind he begged her to seek it in him.

Daphne wrote no more letters home, and as time passed on West Albion
forgot her. Mrs. North never mentioned her name. Neil Burnham lived his
solitary life. Many a girl in West Albion would have been glad to have
stepped into Daphne’s shoes, and shrewd fathers and mothers made much of
him, but nothing came of it. Mrs. Bedloe, whose Carrie was still
unwedded, openly took him to task at last for not marrying and settling
down—“doing his duty by his country,” as she phrased it.

Neil made a humorous answer, with enough earnestness in it to silence
her, and thenceforth he was looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor.

Once, yielding to his secret hunger to know if all was well with Daphne,
he wrote to her; but, after many weeks, the letter came back to him from
the dead letter office.

His curious friendship with Mrs. North continued unbroken. He went often
to see her; she had no other visitors and lived like a recluse, but she
always made much of Neil. Neil, who knew nothing of her old love affair
with his father, often wondered why Daphne’s mother had such a jealous
affection for him.

At the end of ten years the long silence was broken. A letter came to
Mrs. North from Daphne. Neil heard of it again at the post-office. Mrs.
Bedloe, looking at him curiously, told him that at last Daphne had
written to her mother.

“I knew the writing, though it is ten years since I’ve seen it,” she
said. “Daphne always wrote such a pretty hand.”

Neil went from the post-office to Mrs. North and asked her for news of
Daphne.

“Yes, the letter was from her. If you want to read it, it is on the
clock shelf,” said Mrs. North, as coldly as she had said it ten years
before.

Neil, again in silence, took and read the letter, his heart beating
until the thin sheets rustled in his shaking fingers. It was a pitiful
letter enough. Daphne wrote that her husband had been dead for two
years. She had struggled on for the sake of her child, but it had
recently died, too. She was broken in health and spirit.

“I don’t feel that I can keep up alone any longer, now that baby has
gone,” she wrote. “Oh, mother, won’t you forgive me now and let me come
back to you? I’ve been well punished for my disobedience and folly.
Everything you warned me came true. If you could see me now you wouldn’t
know me I’m so changed.”

Daphne ill! Daphne alone among strangers! Daphne free! Neil felt a
sudden thrill of hope and joy.

“You’ll write her to come home of course?” he said eagerly.

Mrs. North looked at him stubbornly.

“Not I. I have no daughter. I have told you so often enough.”

“Have you any maternal feeling at all, woman?” exclaimed Neil in anger.

“No, not now. Daphne killed it all when she broke my heart. She has made
her bed—let her lie on it.”

Neil wasted no more words in useless discussion. He folded the letter up
and put it in his pocket.

“I guess I’ve the best right to this,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” Mrs. North asked.

“You’ll be told of it when I do it,” answered Neil, striding to the
door.

“Wait a moment, Neil.”

Mrs. North went across the hall to her bedroom and presently returned
with a small roll of money in her hand.

“Here,” she said, holding it out to him, “if you are going to write to
Daphne send her this. Tell her I send it to her, not because she is my
daughter, but just as I would give it to any stranger who was in need
and asked me for help.”

For a moment Neil hesitated, his face darkening. Then he took the money
and went out without speaking. Twenty-four hours later Neil Burnham left
Albion Centre on the west-bound train. He was going to find Daphne. When
he reached the city where she lived he found his way at once to the
address given in the letter. It was a shabby boarding house in a shabby
street. The landlady who answered his ring told him that Mrs. Elliott
had not got home from work yet, and asked him to wait.

“You’ll be some friend of hers from down east?” she said, ushering him
into the stuffy little parlor. “She told me she had written home. Her
brother, maybe? No. Well, anyway, I’m glad somebody has come to look
after her. She’s been fretting and grieving like to break her heart.
It’s my opinion she ain’t long for this world. She’s working in Moore
and Burgess’s big departmental store, and it is killing her by inches.”

Neil was glad when she took her voluble presence off. All he could think
of was the fact that he would soon see Daphne.

When she came in he saw her in the dim hall light before she learned of
his presence. It was Daphne—but a sadly changed Daphne. Only the eye of
love would have known her—this pale, frightened-looking woman with the
little scar on her cheek. Could that be Daphne—his pretty, violet-eyed
Daphne of the old days? Life must indeed have gone hardly with her to
bring her down to this. She stopped in the doorway with a little cry
when she saw him.

“Neil!”

Neil strode across the room and caught her trembling form in his strong
arms. She was his again and no mortal power should come between them
now.

“Daphne, oh, Daphne, are you glad to see me?” he said. She was clinging
to him between laughter and tears.

“Oh, Neil, I never thought of this. Oh, indeed, I am glad! But
mother—where is mother? Isn’t she well? Oh, tell me all the home
news—I am starving for it.”

“Your mother is well, but she is hard against you yet. There, don’t
grieve, Daphne. She’ll come round when you go home. It’ll be all right.
I’ve come to take you back.”

“I can’t go back if mother hasn’t forgiven me,” cried Daphne piteously.

“Yes, you are coming back to my home and as my wife, Daphne,” said Neil
decidedly.

She shrank away.

“Oh, Neil, no, no. It can’t be. It would be doing you a wrong.”

“Daphne——”

“No, no, wait—listen,” she cried wildly. “You must listen, Neil. I’m no
wife for you—a broken down woman with all the life crushed out of her.
I did you a bitter wrong once, Neil, but oh, I’ve been bitterly punished
for it. I—I—he’s dead, Neil—but he broke my heart. Look at this scar;
he struck me there once. Oh, Neil, it’s so good to see you—but it can’t
be.”