The Beloved Stranger - By Grace Livingston Hill Page 0,51
it would hurt so much?”
The old lady was still a minute and then said, “Perhaps He did, and you wouldn’t listen. Perhaps you had some warnings that you wouldn’t heed. I don’t know. You’ll have to look into your own life for that.”
Sherrill looked at her aunt thoughtfully, remembering little happenings that had made her uneasy. The time Carter had gone away so hurriedly back to his former home without explanation. The letter addressed to him in a girl’s handwriting that had fallen from his pocket one day, which seemed to embarrass him but which he put back without a word. The telegram he sent her to say he was called to New York when afterward she discovered he had been west again, and when she innocently asked about it he gave but a lame excuse. The conversation she had overheard about him on the trolley calling in question his business principles. The strange way he had acted about not wanting to purchase her necklace at a certain store where she had admired a string of pearls, but had insisted on choosing one from another place. Oh, little things in themselves, but they had made her vaguely uneasy when they happened. Had they been warnings? Perhaps she should have paid more attention to them. But she had been so reluctant to believe anything against him, so determined to shut her eyes to any fault of his!
There was that day, too, when she had come to the office unannounced and found Arla sitting very close to Carter, her hand in his, her head on the desk, crying. They had jumped apart, and Arla had gone quickly out of the room with her handkerchief to her eyes. Carter had been angry at her for coming in without knocking, and had explained that Arla’s mother had just died and he had been comforting her; there was nothing else to it. That incident had troubled her greatly, and they had had more than one discussion about it, until her own love and trust had conquered and she had put it away from her mind. What a fool she had been!
She had argued afterward that of course he was not perfect and that when they were married she would help him to overcome his faults. He seemed so devoted! Then there would surge over her that feeling of his greatness, his ability and good looks, his many attractions, and she would fall once more under the spell of wonder that one so talented as he should love her.
Sharply, too, there came to memory the night before when she had stood looking into her own mirrored eyes, wondering and shrinking back. Was that shrinking the result of those other fears and warnings? Oh, what a fool she had been! Yes, there had been plenty of warning. She was glad of course that she was mercifully delivered from being married to him, but oh, the desolate dreariness of her present situation! A drab life of loneliness to be looking forward to. To have thought herself beloved, and then to find her belief was built on a rotten foundation!
They had come out now, crossed the servants’ hall and the back sitting room where Carter had dressed for his wedding, and paused at the head of the stairs for a moment. Sherrill slipped her arm lovingly about the old lady’s shoulders, and Aunt Pat patted her hand cheerfully. Then as they stood there they heard the doorbell ring, and some packages were handed in, two great boxes.
“More presents!” gasped Sherrill, aghast. “Oh, if there was only something we could do to stop them!”
“Well,” said the old lady with a grin, “we might send out announcements that you were not married and ‘Please omit presents’ at the bottom of the card.”
Once again Sherrill’s tragedy was turned into ridicule, and she gathered up her courage and laughed.
“You’re simply wonderful, Aunt Patricia! You brace me up every time I go to pieces. That’s just what—!” Sherrill stopped suddenly, and her cheeks got red.
“That’s just what what?” asked the old lady, eyeing her interestedly.
“Oh, nothing! You’ll laugh at me, of course. But I was only going to say that’s just what that stranger did last night. He seemed to know exactly how I was feeling and met me at every point with a pleasant saneness that kept me going. I shall always be grateful to him.”
“Hmm!” said Aunt Patricia approvingly. “Well, I thought he had a lot of sense myself.”