But stuck in my hat-band I found a pencilled farewell.

Now Mr. McLean constructed perhaps three letters in the year—­painful, serious events—­like an interview with some important person with whom your speech must decorously flow.  No matter to whom he was writing, it froze all nature stiff in each word he achieved; and his bald business diction and wild archaic penmanship made documents that I value among my choicest correspondence; this one, especially: 

“Wensday four a. m.

“Dear sir this is to Inform you that i have gone to Separ on important bisness where i expect to meet you on your arrival at same point.  You will confer a favor and oblidge undersigned by Informing Miss J. Buckner of date (if soon) you fix for returning per stage to Separ as Miss J. Buckner may prefer company for the trip being long and poor accommodations.

Yours &c.  L. McLEAN.”

This seemed to point but one way; and (uncharitable though it sound) that this girl, so close upon bereavement, should be able to give herself to a lover was distasteful to me.

But, most extraordinary, Lin had gone away without a word to her, and she was left as plainly in the dark as myself.  After her first frank surprise at learning of his departure, his name did not come again from her lips, at any rate to me.  Good Mrs. Pierce dropped a word one day as to her opinion of men who deceive women into expecting something from them.

“Let us talk straight,” said I.  “Do you mean that Miss Buckner says that, or that you say it?”

“Why, the poor thing says nothing!” exclaimed the lady.  “It’s like a man to think she would.  And I’ll not say anything, either, for you’re all just the same, except when you’re worse; and that Lin McLean is going to know what I think of him next time we meet.”

He did.  On that occasion the kind old dame told him he was the best boy in the country, and stood on her toes and kissed him.  But meanwhile we did not know why he had gone, and Jessamine (though he was never subtle or cruel enough to plan such a thing) missed him, and thus in her loneliness had the chance to learn how much he had been to her.

Though pressed to stay indefinitely beneath Mrs. Pierce’s hospitable roof, the girl, after lingering awhile, and going often to that nook in the hill by Riverside, took her departure.  She was restless, yet clung to the neighborhood.  It was with a wrench that she fixed her going when I told her of my own journey back to the railroad.  In Buffalo she walked to the court-house and stood a moment as if bidding this site of one life-memory farewell, and from the stage she watched and watched the receding town and mountains.  “It’s awful to be leaving him!” she said.  “Excuse me for acting so in front of you.”  With the poignant emptiness overcoming her in new guise, she blamed herself for not waiting in Illinois until he had been sent to Joliet, for then, so near home, he must have gone with her.