"And Daisy?" something whispered in his ear.
"I must and will forget her," he sternly answered, and the arm he had
thrown around Julia, who was sitting with him upon the sofa, tightened
its grasp until she winced and moved a little from him.
He was very talkative that evening, and asked his wife many questions
about her friends and the shopping she wished to do, and the places they
were to visit; and Julia, who had hitherto regarded him as a great,
silent man, given to few words, wondered at the change, and watched the
bright red spots on his cheeks, and thought how she would manage to have
medical advice for that dreadful heart disease which had come like a
nightmare to haunt her bridal days.
Next morning there came a Boston paper containing a notice of the
marriage, and this Guy sent to Daisy, with only the faint tracing of a
pencil to indicate the paragraph. "Better so than to write," he thought;
though he longed to add the words, "Forgive me, Daisy; your letter came
too late."
And so the paper was sent, and after a week or two Guy went back to his
home in Cuylerville, and the blue rooms which Julia had fitted up for
Daisy five years before became her own by right. And Fanny Thornton
welcomed her warmly to the house, and by many little acts of
thoughtfulness showed how glad she was to have her there. And Julia was
very happy save when she remembered the heart disease, which she was
sure Guy had, and for which he would not seek advice. "There was nothing
the matter with his heart unless it were too full of love," he told her
laughingly, and wondered to himself if in saying this to her he was
guilty of a lie, inasmuch as his words misled her so completely.
After a time, however, there came a change, and thoughts of Daisy ceased
to disturb him as they once had done. No one ever mentioned her to him,
and since the receipt of her letter he had heard no tidings of her until
six months after his marriage, when there came to him the ten thousand
dollars, with all the interest which had accrued since the settlement
first was made. There was no word from Daisy herself, but a letter from
a lawyer in Berlin, who said all there was to say with regard to the
business, but did not tell where Miss McDonald, as he called her, was.
Then Guy wrote to Daisy a letter of thanks, to which there came no
reply, and as time went on the old wound began to heal, the grave to
close again; and when, at last, one year after his marriage, they
brought him a beautiful little baby girl and laid it in his arms, and
then a few moments later let him into the room where the pale mother
lay, he stooped over her and, kissing her fondly, said: "I never loved you half as well as I do now."