And "from New York immediately to
Hillsboro" he had written in words that fairly sung themselves off the
paper. I was frightened--so frightened that the letter shook in my
hands, and with only the thought of being sure that I might be alone for
a few minutes with it, I fled to the garret.
Surely no woman ever in all the world read such a letter as that, and no
wonder my breath almost failed me. It was a love-letter in which the
cold paper was transubstantiated into a heart that beat against mine and
I bowed my head over it as I wet it with tears. I knew then that I had
taken his coming back lightly; had fussed over it and been silly-proud
of it; while not _really_ caring at all. All that awful melting
away of my fatness seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me;
he wouldn't have minded if I weighed five hundred, I felt sure. He loved
me--really, really, really; and I had sat and weighed him with a lot of
men who were nothing more than amused by my flightiness, or taken with
my beauty, and who wouldn't have known such love if it were shown to
them through a telescope.
[Illustration: His letters were all there and his photographs]
I reached into a trunk that stood right beside me and took out a box
that I hadn't looked into for years.
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