It seems just as if he was my mother, and the name ‘Child-wife’ makes little bits of waves run all over me.  He’s a good boy, and God will pay him by and by for what he’s been to me.  Some folks here call me Mrs. St. Claire.  Why do they?  Sometimes I remember something about somebody somewhere, more than a hundred years ago, but just as I think I’ve got hold of it right, it goes away.  I lose it entirely, and my head is so snarled up.  Come and unsnarl it, wont you?  Nina is sick, Nina is dying, Nina is crazy.  You must come.”

The second postscript showed a bolder, firmer hand, and Edith read,

“I, too, echo Nina’s words, ‘Come, Miggie, come.’  Nina wants you, and I—­Heaven only knows how much I want you—­but, Edith, were you in verity Richard’s wife, you could not be more sacred to me than you are as his betrothed, and I promise solemnly that I will not seek to influence your decision.  The time is surely coming when I shall be alone; no gentle Nina, sweet ‘Child-wife’ clinging to me.  She will be gone, and her Arthur boy, as she calls me, free to love whomsoever he will.  But this shall make no difference.  I have given you to Richard.  I will not wrong the blind man.  Heaven bless you both and bring you to us.”

The sun shone just as brightly in the summer sky—­the Kauterskill fell as softly into the deep ravine—­the shouts of the tourists were just us gay—­the flecks of sunshine on the grass danced just as merrily, but Edith did not heed them.  Her thoughts were riveted upon the lines she had read, and her heart throbbed with an unutterable desire to respond at once to that pleading call—­to take to herself wings and fly away—­away over mountain and valley, river and rill, to the fair land of flowers where Nina was, and where too was Arthur.  As she read, she uttered no sound, but when at last Richard said to her,

“What is it, Birdie?  Have you heard bad news?” her tears flowed at once, and leaning her head upon his shoulder, she answered,

“Nina is dying—­dear little, bright-haired Nina.  She has sent for me.  She wants me to come so much.  May I, Richard?  May I go to Nina?”

“Read me the letter,” was Richard’s reply, his voice unusually low and sad.

Edith could not read the whole.  Arthur’s postscript must be omitted, as well as a portion of Nina’s, but she did the best she could, breaking down entirely when she reached the point where Nina spoke of her Arthur boy’s goodness in carrying her to the window.

Richard, too, was much affected, and his voice trembled as he said, “St. Claire is a noble fellow.  I always felt strangely drawn toward him.  Isn’t there something between him and Nina—­something more than mere guardianship?”

“They were engaged before she was crazy,” returned Edith, while Richard sighed, “poor boy, poor boy!  It must be worse than death.  His darkness is greater than mine.”

Then his thoughts came back to Edith’s question, “May I go to Nina?” and his first feeling was that she might, even though her going would necessarily defer a day to which he was so continually looking forward, but when he remembered the danger to which she would be exposed from the intense heat at that season of the year, he shrank from it at once, mildly but firmly refusing to let her incur the fearful risk.