“Soon after her ball she had typhoid fever.  In her delirium of whom do you suppose she incessantly and pitifully talked?  Every one had supposed that she and Barbee were sweethearts—­and had been for years.  But Barbee’s name was never on her lips.  It was all Rowan, Rowan, Rowan.  Poor child, she chided him for being so cold to her; and she talked to him about the river of life and about his starting on the long voyage from the house of his fathers; and begged to be taken with him, and said that in their family the women never loved but once.  When she grew convalescent, there was a consultation of the grandmother and the mother and the doctors:  one passion now seemed to constitute all that was left of Marguerite’s life; and that was like a flame burning her strength away.

“They did as the doctor said had to be done.  Mrs. Meredith had been very kind during her illness, had often been to the house.  They kept from her of course all knowledge of what Marguerite had disclosed in her delirium.  So when Marguerite by imperceptible degrees grew stronger, Mrs. Meredith begged that she might be moved out to the country for the change and the coolness and the quiet; and the doctors availed themselves of this plan as a solution of their difficulty—­to lessen Marguerite’s consuming desire by gratifying it.  So she and her mother went out to the Merediths’.  The change proved beneficial.  I have not been driving myself, although the summer has been so long and hot; and during the afternoons I have so longed to see the cool green lanes with the sun setting over the fields.  But of course people drive a great deal and they often meet Mrs. Meredith with Marguerite in the carriage beside her.  At first it was Marguerite’s mother and Marguerite.  Then it was Mrs. Meredith and Marguerite; and now it is Rowan and Marguerite.  They drive alone and she sits with her face turned toward him—­in open idolatry.  She is to stay out there until she is quite well.  How curiously things work around!  If he ever proposes, scandal will make no difference to Marguerite.

“How my letter wanders!  But so do my thoughts wander.  If you only knew, while I write these things, how I am really thinking of other things.  But I must go on in my round-about way.  What I started out to say was that when the scandals, I mean the truth, spread over the town about Rowan, the three Marguerites stood by him.  You could never have believed that the child had such fire and strength and devotion in her nature.  I called on them one day and was coldly treated simply because I am your closest friend.  Marguerite pointedly expressed her opinion of a woman who deserts a man because he has his faults.  Think of this child’s sitting in moral condemnation upon you!

“The Hardages also—­of course you have no stancher friends than they are—­have stood up stubbornly for Rowan.  Professor Hardage became very active in trying to bring the truth out of what he believes to be gossip and misunderstanding.  And Miss Anna has also remained loyal to him, and in her sunny, common-sense way flouts the idea of there being any truth in these reports.