“No, I must stay here all winter—­I shall come to you some time.”

She sobbed herself to sleep in his arms, with the letter held fast in her hand; he laid her on her bed, pressing his lips to her warm, wet face, and then went down and out on the beach, pacing up and down until the dawn was in the sky.

XVI.

MAPLE STREET.

“Work for some good, be it ever so slowly.”—­Mrs. Osgood.

The long room with its dark carpet and dark walls was in twilight, in twilight and in firelight, for without the rain was falling steadily, and in the old house fires were needed early in the season.  In the time of which little Jeroma had heard, there had been a fire on the hearth in the front parlor, but to-night, when that old time was among the legends, the fire glowed in a large grate; in the back parlor the heat came up through the register.  Miss Prudence had a way of designating the long apartment as two rooms, for there was an arch in the centre, and there were two mantels and two fireplaces.  Prue’s father would have said to-night that the old room was unchanged—­nothing had been taken out and nothing new brought in since that last night that he had seen the old man pacing up and down, and the old man’s daughter whirling around on the piano stool, as full of hope and trust and enthusiasm as ever a girl could be.

But to-night there was a solitary figure before the fire, with no memories and no traditions to disturb her dreaming, with no memories of other people’s past that is, for there was a sad memory or a foreboding in the very droop of her shoulders and in her listless hands.  The small, plump figure was arrayed in school attire of dark brown, with linen collar and cuffs, buttoned boots resting on the fender, and a black silk apron with pockets; there were books and a slate upon the rug, and a slate pencil and lead pencil in one of the apron pockets; a sheet of note paper had slipped from her lap down to the rug, on the sheet of paper was a half-finished letter beginning:  “Dear Morris.”  There was nothing in the letter worth jotting down, she wondered why she had ever begun it.  She was nestling down now with her head on the soft arm of the chair, her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep, for the moisture beneath the tremulous eyelids had formed itself into two large drops and was slowly rolling, unheeded, down her cheeks.

The rain was beating noisily upon the window panes, and the wind was rising higher and higher; as it lulled for a moment there was the sound of a footfall on the carpet somewhere and the door was pushed open from the lighted hall.

“Don’t you want to be lighted up yet, Miss Marjorie?”

“No, Deborah, thank you!  I’ll light the lamps myself.”

“Young things like to sit in the dark, I guess,” muttered old Deborah, closing the door softly; adding to herself:  “Miss Prudence used to, once on a time, and this girl is coming to it.”