The Letter of Credit

"It seemed--No, it _didn't_ seem very natural that you should forget all about me, for I did not think it was at all like you; but that was what people said."

  "And Rotha believed?"

  "I almost believed it at last," said Rotha, very sorry to confess the fact.

  "What do you think now?"

  "I think I was mistaken. But, Mr. Digby, three years is a long time; and after all, why should you remember me? I was nothing to you; only a child that you had been very kind to."

  He was silent. What was she to him indeed? And what sort of relations was he to maintain between them now? She was not a child any longer. Here was a tall, graceful girl, albeit dressed in exceedingly plain garments; the garments could not hide and even rather emphasized the fact, for she was graceful in spite of them. And the promise of the child's face was abundantly fulfilled in the woman. Features very fine, eyes of changing and flashing power, all the indications that he well remembered of a nature passionate, tender, sensitive and strong; while there was also a certain veil of sweetness and patience over them all, which he did not remember. Mr. Southwode began dimly to perceive that he could not take up things just where he left them; what he left was not in existence. In place of the passionate, variable, wilful child, here was a developed, sensitive, and withal very beautiful woman. What was he to do with her? or what could he do for her?

  Unconsciously, the two had begun slowly pacing towards the house, and Rotha was the one to break the silence. Happily, her companion's scruples did not enter her head.

  "What brought you here, Mr. Digby? How ever came you to Tanfield?"

  "To look after that little girl you thought I had forgotten," he said with a slight smile.

  "But what made you come _here?_ Did you know I was here?"

  "Not at all. I could not find out anything of your whereabouts; except indeed that you were 'in the country.' So much I learned."

  "From whom?"

  "From Mrs. Busby."

  "From my aunt! You have seen her! When did you see her?"

  "Yesterday; immediately upon my arrival."

  "Then you have only just come? From England, I mean."

  "Only just come."

  Rotha paused. This statement was delightfully soothing.

  "And you saw aunt Serena? And what did she say?"

  "She said nothing. I could get nothing out of her, of what I wanted to hear. She said you were quite well, making a visit at a friend's house in the country."

  "That--is--not--true!" said Rotha slowly and indignantly. "Did she tell you that?"

  "Are you not making a visit here?"

  "What is a 'visit'? No, I am not. And, it is not a friend's house, either."

  "How came you here? and when? and what for, then?" said he now in his turn.

  "I came--some time in last May; near the end, I believe."

  "Why?"

  Rotha lifted her eyes to his. "I do not know," she said.

  "What was the alleged reason for your coming?"

  "Aunt Serena was going, she said, to Chicago, on a visit, and my presence would not be convenient. I could not stay in the house in New York alone. So I was sent here. That is all I know."

  "_Sent?_"

  Rotha nodded. "Yes."

  "Not _brought?_"

  "O no!"

  "Did you come _alone?_"

  A sudden spasm seemed to catch the girl's heart; she stopped and covered her face with her hands; and for a minute or two there came a rush of hot tears, irrepressible and unmanageable. Why they came Rotha did not know, and was surprised at them; but there was a quiver and a glitter in her face when she took her hands down, which shewed to her companion that the clouds and the sunshine were at strife somewhere. They walked on a few paces more, and then, coming full in sight of the house, Rotha's steps stayed.

  "Where are we going?" she said. "I have no place to take you to, in there."

  Mr. Digby's eyes made a survey of the building before him.

  "O it is large enough--there is room, and rooms, enough," said Rotha; "but it is all unused and unopened. I have one corner, at the top of the house; and down in another corner Mr. and Mrs. Purcell have their kitchen and a little sleeping place off it; all the rest is desert."

  "Who are Mr. and Mrs. Purcell?"

  "Aunt Serena's tenants--farmers--I do not know what to call them. They might be servants, but they are not that exactly."

  "Do you mean that there is no other person in the house?"

  "No other person."

  Mr. Southwode began to go forward again, slowly, looking at everything as he went.

  "What do you hear from your aunt?"

  "Nothing. O yes, I have had one scrap of a note from her; some time ago; but it told me nothing:"

  "Have you written to her?"

  "Over and over; till I was tired."

  "Have you written to no one else?"

  "Why of course! I wrote to Mrs. Mowbray, again and again; and to one or two of the girls; but I never got an answer. The whole world has seemed dead, and been dead, for me."

  They slowly paced by the house, and began to go down the sweep towards the other gate.

  "Alone with these two servants for five months!" Mr. Southwode said. "Rotha, what sort of a life have you been living all this while?"

  "I do not know," said the girl catching her breath. "Rather queer. I suppose it has been good for me."

  "What makes you suppose that?"

  "I think I can feel that it has."--But Rotha added no more.

  "Is confidence between us not fully reestablished?" he asked with a smile.

  "O yes--if you care to know," Rotha answered hesitatingly, at the same time finding herself ready to slide back into the old habit of being very open with him.

  "I care to know--if you like to tell me."

  "It has been a queer life," she repeated. "I have been living between two things, my Bible, and the garden. There was an interval of some weeks not long ago, when Mrs. Purcell was sick; and then I lived largely in the kitchen."

  "Go on, and tell me--But how can you go on!" Mr. Southwode found himself approaching the gate and road again, and suddenly broke off. "I cannot keep you standing here by the hour, and a little time will not do for us. Pray, if you have no place to take me to, where do you yourself live?"

  The laughing glance that came to him now was precisely another of the child's looks that he remembered; a look that recognized his sympathy, and answered it out of a fund of heart treasure.

  "I live between my corner at the top of the house, and Mrs. Purcell's corner at the bottom. I have no place but my room and her kitchen."

  "Where can I see you? We have a great deal to talk about. Rotha, suppose you go for a drive with me?"

  Rotha's eyes sparkled. "It would not be the first time," she said.

  "No. Then the next question is, when can we go?" He looked at his watch.

  "It is too late for this afternoon," Rotha opined.

  "I am afraid it is. I do not think we can manage it. Then--Rotha, will you be ready to-morrow morning? How early can you be ready?"

  "We have breakfast about half past six."

  "_We?_"

  "Yes," said Rotha half laughing. "We. That is, Mr. Purcell, and his wife, and myself."

  "Do you take your meals with these people?"

  Rotha nodded. "And in their kitchen. It is the only place."

  "But they are not--What are they?"

  "Not what you would call refined persons," said Rotha, while again the laugh of amusement and pleasure in her eyes shone through an iris of sudden tears. "No--they have been kind to me, though, in their way."

  "As kind as their allegiance to Mrs. Busby permitted," said Mr. Southwode drily, recognizing at the same time the full beauty of this look I have tried to describe. "Well! That is over. How early to-morrow will you be ready to come away?"

  "To come away?" repeated Rotha. "For a drive, you mean?"

 
"For a drive from this place. It is not my purpose ever to bring you back again."

  The colour darted vividly into Rotha's cheeks, and a corresponding flash came to her eye. Yet she stood still and silent, while the colour went and came. Never here again? Then whither? and under what guardianship? His own? There came a great heart leap of joy at this suggestion, but with it came also a vague pull-back of doubt; the origin of which probably lay in words she had heard long ago and never forgotten, the tendency of which was to throw scruples in the way of