Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/306

274 I looked up at him, standing over me there, tall and handsome, no change in him except he was so brown and had a little white scar on his forehead; and, though I couldn’t understand at all, being all bewildered-like, I felt a great deep thankfulness.

“No, you’re not too late,” I said.

“Thank God,” said he, under his breath. And then he pulled me into the parlor and shut the door.

“They told me at the station that Phillippa was to be married to Mark Foster to-day. I couldn’t believe it, but I came here as fast as horse-flesh could bring me. Aunt Rachel, it can’t be true! She can’t care for Mark Foster, even if she had forgotten me!”

“It’s true enough that she is to marry Mark,” I said, half-laughing, half-crying, “but she doesn’t care for him. [very beat of her heart is for you. It’s all her stepma’s doings. Mark has got a mortgage on the place, and he told Isabella Clark that, if Phillippa would marry him, he’d burn the mortgage, and, if she wouldn’t, he’d foreclose. Phillippa is sacrificing herself to save her stepma for her dead father’s sake. It’s all your fault,” I cried, getting over my bewilderment. “We thought you were dead. Why didn’t you come home when you were alive? Why didn’t you write?”

“I did write, after I got out of the hospital, several times,” he said, “and never a word in answer,