“And here was I distrusting so much that I was nearly ready to kill myself. Only I thought it would be such a terrible shock to you, my precious! It would have been to tell God to his face that I knew he would not help me. I am sure now that he is never forgetting, though he seems to have forgotten. There was that letter lying in the dark through all the hours of the long night, while we slept in the weariness of sorrow and fear, not knowing what the light was bringing us. God is good!”
“Let us go and see these people and make sure,” said Annie. “ ‘Hale and Hearty,’ do they call themselves? But I’m going with you myself this time! I’m not going to have such another day as I had yesterday—waiting for you till the sun was down, and all was dark, you bad man!—and fancying all manner of terrible things! I wonder—I wonder, if—”
“Well, what do you wonder, Annie?”
“Only whether, if now we were to find out it was indeed all a mistake, I should yet be able to hope on through all the rest. I doubt it; I doubt it! Oh, Hector, you have taught me everything!”
“More, it seems, than I have myself learned. Your mother had already taught you far more than ever I had to give you!”
“But it is much too early yet, I fear, to call in the City,” said Annie. “Don’t you think we should have time first to find out whether the gentleman we were thinking of inquiring after today be your old college friend or not? And I will call at the grocer’s, and tell him we hope to settle his bill in a few days. Then you can come to me, and I will go to you, and we shall meet somewhere between.”
They did as Annie proposed; and before they met, Hector had found his friend, and been heartily received both by him and by his young wife.