Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/81

 door on her way to her room, I called her, and she came in.

I was in bed, and I had the letter in my hand. "I want ou to read it," I said. "It is from Olaf Thoresen."

She looked at it, and asked, "When did it come?"

"Two months ago. The day that he left."

"Why haven't you shown it to me?"

"I couldn't make up my mind. I do not know even now that I am right in letting you see it. But I feel that you have a right to see it. It is you who must answer it. Not I."

When she had gone, I turned to the chapter in my book where Becky weeps crocodile tears over poor Rawdon Crawley on the night before Waterloo. There is no scene in modern literature to match it. But I couldn't get my mind on it. Nancy was reading Olaf's letter!

I kept a copy of it, and here it is:

"I knew when I first saw her in the garden that she was the One Woman. I had wanted sea-blood, and when she came, ready for a dip in the sea, it seemed a sign. One knows these things somehow, and I knew. I shan't attempt to explain it.

"When you told me of her lover, I felt that Fate had played a trick on me. I could not now with honor pursue the woman who was promised to 75