Peggy-in-the-Rain/Chapter 18

by Ralph Henry Barbour

 

XVIII

EDNESDAY and Thursday passed laggingly. Friday found Gordon nervous, unstrung, alternating between a calm certainty that all would come right and a despairing certainty that Peggy was lost to him. Hoping, but scarcely expecting that she might write to him to-day instead of waiting for the morrow, he stayed at home all the afternoon, breaking a business appointment to do so, and watched for the postman. As the time passed his nervousness became an irritability so unusual that Hurd became worried and dogged him solicitously until Gordon, with a flare of temper, damned him away. After the last delivery had been made he slammed out of the house and walked through a drizzle to the nearest club, where, by two in the morning he had managed by execrable playing, to lose many dollars at auction.

By Saturday morning the drizzle had become a very healthy downpour. Meaning to arise early, he overslept and reached the dining-room at half-past nine. The mail was heaped beside his plate. His heart, none too steady at best to-day, seemed to turn completely over as he sank into his chair under the sympathetic and comprehending eyes of Hurd. He pushed the grapefruit away and took up the Herald.

"Coffee, Hurd," he said. "Nothing else, please."

"The kidneys are very nice, sir," ventured Hurd.

"Nothing else, Hurd," responded Gordon in a tone that was final. Hurd poured the coffee gravely. Then he cunningly moved the toast-rack nearer.

"You may go," muttered Gordon, glancing unseeingly at the first page of the paper. Hurd retired noiselessly. Gordon gulped half the coffee, seized the letters and went to the window. There, with hands that trembled, he went over them in feverish hurry. Circulars, bills, announcements, broker's communications fell unheeded to the carpet. He had never seen Peggy's handwriting, and his first draw was a blank, an invitation to dinner. Impatiently he tossed it aside and again shuffled over the remaining letters. One, addressed in an easy flowing hand on a cheap business-shape envelope, was thrice disregarded, and only when he had been disappointed four times did he open it, already concluding that she had written, if at all, too late for the first delivery. The single sheet of cheap gray paper inside didn't fit the envelope and Gordon scarcely troubled to glance at the signature. But what he saw was sufficient to rivet his attention.

He let the note drop, fumbled for his cigarette case, and, not until he had sent a half-dozen clouds of blue smoke at the gray, rain-blurred window did he rescue the letter and, with pounding heart, read it.

I wonder [she wrote] if you have any idea how hard it is for me to write this. I have tried already four times, and this, my fifth attempt, will prove no better than the others, I fear. Give me credit for this, for it would be so very, very much easier to forget my promise and not write at all. I've been thinking it all over. I've done nothing much else for three days. Now that I have reached my decision it seems so evident that I should have reached it Tuesday night that I can only wonder. What you wanted and, for I am going to be quite honest, dear, what I wanted, too, must not be. Don't think, please, that this decision has cost me no unhappiness, for it has. I love you. I want to tell you that, I want you to believe it. The only consolation I find is in the knowledge that what I feel for you is love and not what I feared. Perhaps if it were not love I wouldn't have the strength to say no to you. But it is love. I tell you so gladly, and without shame. You've made me love you so much as to make what you proposed impossible. If I cared less, I might consent. As it is, I dare not risk it. I could never share you with another. I should hate the secrecy, the continual pretense. I should want to shout it from the house tops, dear, and not hide it. Can you understand what I mean? I fear I don't make it very plain, but you must forgive me, for my mind is tired and my heart is very wretched. I don't want this to make you very unhappy, dear, and yet I am selfish enough to hope that you aren't reading it with a sense of relief. I want so much to believe that what you have offered is just as much love as mine is. I am going away. I shall be gone when you read this. Not so much because I don't trust you as because I am just learning myself and don't yet know my own strength. Don't try to find me, dear. I want this to be good-by. And don't try to learn who I am. Just let me be Peggy-in-the-Rain, the girl you cared for for a while and who cared for you. Thank you for your kindness to me, thank you for making me love you, for I think I am happier now in my unhappiness than I was before when my heart was quite empty. I shall read of you and hear of you, and always there will be some one praying God for your happiness. Good night and good-by.

Sincerely,
Peggy.

God bless you and keep you, dear.