Evelina shook her head.  “No,” she panted—­“I don’t—­I never knew.  He said it was his duty.”

“Duty can get to be an idol of wood and stone, an’ I don’t know but Thomas’s is,” said the old man.  “Well, I’ll tell you.  He don’t think it’s right for him to marry you, and make you leave that big house, and lose all that money.  He don’t care anything about it for himself, but it’s for you.  Did you know that?”

Evelina grasped the old man’s arm hard with her little fingers.

“You don’t mean that—­was why he did it!” she gasped.

“Yes, that was why.”

Evelina drew away from him.  She was ashamed to have Thomas’s father see the joy in her face.  “Thank you, sir,” she said.  “I did not understand.  I—­will write to him.”

“Maybe my son will think I have done wrong coming betwixt him and his idees of duty,” said old Thomas Merriam, “but sometimes there’s a good deal lost for lack of a word, and I wanted you to have a fair chance an’ a fair say.  It’s been borne in upon me that women folks don’t always have it.  Now you can do jest as you think best, but you must remember one thing—­riches ain’t all.  A little likin’ for you that’s goin’ to last, and keep honest and faithful to you as long as you live, is worth more; an’ it’s worth more to women folks than ’t is to men, an’ it’s worth enough to them.  My son’s poorly.  His mother and I are worried about him.  He don’t eat nor sleep—­walks his chamber nights.  His mother don’t know what the matter is, but he let on to me some time since.”

“I’ll write a letter to him,” gasped Evelina again.  “Good-night, sir.”  She pulled her little black silk shawl over her head and hastened home, and all night long her candle burned, while her weary little fingers toiled over pages of foolscap-paper to convince Thomas Merriam fully, and yet in terms not exceeding maidenly reserve, that the love of his heart and the companionship of his life were worth more to her than all the silver and gold in the world.  Then the next morning she despatched it, all neatly folded and sealed, and waited.

It was strange that a letter like that could not have moved Thomas Merriam, when his heart too pleaded with him so hard to be moved.  But that might have been the very reason why he could withstand her, and why the consciousness of his own weakness gave him strength.  Thomas Merriam was one, when he had once fairly laid hold of duty, to grasp it hard, although it might be to his own pain and death, and maybe to that of others.  He wrote to poor young Evelina another letter, in which he emphasized and repeated his strict adherence to what he believed the line of duty in their separation, and ended it with a prayer for her welfare and happiness, in which, indeed, for a second, the passionate heart of the man showed forth.  Then he locked himself in his chamber, and nobody ever knew what he suffered there.  But one pang he did not suffer which Evelina would have suffered in his place.  He mourned not over nor realized the grief of her tender heart when she should read his letter, otherwise he could not have sent it.  He writhed under his own pain alone, and his duty hugged him hard, like the iron maiden of the old tortures, but he would not yield.