Later I had a party at my house, inviting all the young crowd of Springfield to come over.  Douglas came too, and Reverdy and Sarah and Mr. and Mrs. Sturtevant.  It was just after Christmas.  We had a roaring fire in the fireplace.  We popped corn and pulled candy.  I brought in my old fiddler from the woods to play for us.  We danced.  These festivities were in honor of Miss Walker, and she entered into the fun with great zest.  Day by day we were better friends.  When she came to go back to Springfield she was no longer Miss Walker to me, she was Abigail.  I was not in love with her—­there was Dorothy still in my heart.  Yet I was very fond of her.  I thought she approved of me.  As we parted she asked me why I did not come to Chicago.  It was fast growing into a city.  What better field for making money?  Vaguely the idea entered my mind and began to mature.

CHAPTER XXV

The truth was that the loneliness in my life was depressing me; it was in a sense work without hope—­only the hope of being rich.  While I could not doubt Abigail’s fitness as a mate for me, and though I was in desperate need of a companion, Dorothy would not out of my mind and my heart.  My indomitable will had asserted itself in the pursuit of Dorothy.  Even if my judgment had favored Abigail I could not have given up Dorothy.  To surrender the hope of Dorothy was to leave something in my life unfinished; and that was contrary to my tenacious purpose.  I could not hear Abigail’s voice without comparing it to the softer modulations of Dorothy’s.  I could not be in the presence of Abigail without feeling that there was something more kindred to me in the personality of Dorothy.  And yet I had to confess on reflection that I was not sure of this.  Dorothy wrote to me on occasion, but there was really nothing in her letters to keep hope alive.  All the while my life was going on in labor, in planning, in building, with Mrs. Brown to keep my house.  Even Zoe did not write to me.  I knew that she was receiving the monthly allowance from the fact that my letters were not returned.  However, at last one was sent back to me.

Then in the late winter I was surprised one day by the visit of a stranger—­and a strange character he was too.  He introduced himself to me as Henry Fortescue of Chicago—­and as Zoe’s husband!  I remembered; he was the voice teacher with whom Zoe was sitting on the lake front.  He began by saying that he had come with very unwelcome news and upon a sorrowful mission.  Zoe was dead!  Zoe had met her death by foul play.  She had been found strangled to death in her bed.

I glanced in horror at this unknown character.  He went on to tell me that suspicion had fastened itself upon a half-breed who came to the house where Zoe lived.  He had been arrested, was soon to be tried.  As to Fortescue’s visit here, he had come to see about Zoe’s land and interests.  He had married Zoe some weeks before her death.  Without knowing much about such matters I went at once to the point.