She tried to tear the letter open, but for all it was so damaged the paper had remained tough.  She would wait to read it till she reached the summer house.  That little vine-hung arbour had been in her thought ever since Dr. Prue proposed to bring her down to the park.  She had a foolish desire to sit there and look at the river, and go on being honest with herself.

Margaret Elizabeth, mounting the steps and looking at her letter as she did so, was confronted by somebody who started up in surprise from the bench where she had sat with her flowers that autumn day.

For one surprised moment she and the stranger faced each other, then Miss Bentley exclaimed, “I saw the wagon at the gate, but I didn’t know it was yours.”  And then the mischief faded into simple honest gladness as she held out her hand.  “I certainly did not expect to see you,” she added, “but you are an unexpected sort of person.”

“Nothing so wonderful as the chance of meeting you occurred to me for a moment,” the Candy Man assured her.  “In fact I was not certain you cared to see me.”  Those same pleasant eyes, so emphatically not the eyes of Augustus, looked into hers questioningly.

Margaret Elizabeth held up the letter.  “It was shipwrecked,” she said.  “I got it only a few minutes ago.  I haven’t read it.  I thought it was you who didn’t care to be friends.”

The Candy Man did not exactly understand how a letter could be shipwrecked in an overland journey of ten hours, but he dismissed it as of no importance.  “It isn’t worth reading now,” he said.  “It was just to make my adieus and ask if some time when I had lived down my past,” here he smiled, “I might come back and tell you my strange story.  I was counting on your willingness to be friends.  You remember you said it would do no harm to hope.”

“Oh, did I?  And when you did not hear from me, what did you think?  Honestly,” asked Margaret Elizabeth.

“I thought of course there must be a reason.  A shipwreck did not occur to me.”

“Do you mean a reason for not being friends?  But you came.”

“The suspense was too much for me.  I haven’t many friends; and besides, this is on the way to Texas.”

“So you are going to Texas this time?”

It seemed the Candy Man had heard of an opening there.

Margaret Elizabeth wanted to ask why he had come to the park, but something told her not to; instead she said, looking away to the shining river, “I know of no reason why we should not be friends.  So I am ready to hear the story you speak of.  Is it more strange than the adventures of a Candy Wagon?” Her eyes came back and met his as they had done the day when the conversation turned upon fairy godmothers.  Margaret Elizabeth was not spoiled.

“It is more serious,” was his reply.  “In fact, it is very serious.  The Candy Wagon was a mere episode.  What I wish to tell you now goes deeper.”