“And are always a-getting stronger, old chap?”

“Yes, dear Joe, steadily.”

Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and said, in what I thought a husky voice, “Good night!”

When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay.  I would tell him before breakfast.  I would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him; for, it was the first day I had been up early.  I went to his room, and he was not there.  Not only was he not there, but his box was gone.

I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a letter.  These were its brief contents.

“Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again dear Pip and will do better without Jo.

“P.S.  Ever the best of friends.”

Enclosed in the letter, was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I had been arrested.  Down to that moment I had vainly supposed that my creditor had withdrawn or suspended proceedings until I should be quite recovered.  I had never dreamed of Joe’s having paid the money; but, Joe had paid it, and the receipt was in his name.

What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and there to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance with him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved Secondly, which had begun as a vague something lingering in my thoughts, and had formed into a settled purpose?

The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how humbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost all I once hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in my first unhappy time.  Then, I would say to her, “Biddy, I think you once liked me very well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed away from you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has been since.  If you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take me with all my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like a forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much need of a hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I am a little worthier of you that I was — not much, but a little.  And, Biddy, it shall rest with you to say whether I shall work at the forge with Joe, or whether I shall try for any different occupation down in this country, or whether we shall go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me, which I set aside when it was offered, until I knew your answer.  And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with me, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you.”

Such was my purpose.  After three days more of recovery, I went down to the old place, to put it in execution; and how I sped in it, is all I have left to tell.