He wrote a very tender letter to Bim that day.  He told her that he had come to Chicago to live so that he might be near her and ready to help her if she needed help.  “The same old love is in my heart that made me want you for my wife long ago, that has filled my letters and sustained me in many an hour of peril,” he wrote.  “If you really think that you must marry Davis, I ask you at least to wait for the developments of a suit which Abe Lincoln is bringing in behalf of many citizens of Tazewell County.  It is likely that we shall know more than we do now before that case ends.  I saw your beautiful little boy.  He looks so much like you that I long to steal him and keep him with me.”

In a few days he received this brief reply: 

* * * * *

“Dear Harry:  Your letter pleased and pained me.  I have been so tossed about that I don’t know quite where I stand.  My brain is like a bridge that has been washed out by floods.  I am picking up the fragments and trying to rebuild it.  For a long time my life has been nothing but a series of emotions.  What Honest Abe may be able to prove I know not, but I am sure that he can not disprove the fact that Mr. Davis has been kind and generous to me.  For that I can not ever cease to be grateful.  I should have married him before now but for one singular circumstance.  My little boy can not be made to like him.  He will have nothing to do with Mr. Davis.  He will not be bribed or coerced.  Time and kindness do not seem to diminish his dislike.  My soul has been drugged with argument and—­I can not help saying it—­bribed with favors.  But the boy has been steadfast.  He has kept his frankness and honesty.  I saw in this a prophecy of trouble.  I left home and went down into the very shadow of death.  It may be that we have been saved for each other by the wisdom of childhood.  I must not see you now.  Nor shall I see him until I have found my way.  Even your call can not make me forget that I am under a solemn promise.  I must keep it without much more delay unless something happens to release me.

“I’m glad you like the boy.  He is a wonderful child.  I named him Nehemiah for his grandfather.  We call him Nim and sometimes ‘Mr. Nimble’ because he is so lively.  I’m homesick to see him and you.  I am going to Dixon to teach and earn money for mother and the baby.  Don’t tell any one where I am and above all don’t come to see me until in good heart I can ask you to come.

“God bless you!

“Bim.”

* * * * *

In a few weeks the suit came on.  It was tried in the new brick Court-House in Chicago.  Davis’s defense, as given in the answer, alleged that the notes were to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of lots and that in consequence of the collapse of the boom there had been no such proceeds.  His claim was supported by the testimony of his secretary and another and by certain letters of his, promising