At length she read:
DEAR CHARITY:
I have your letter, and it touches me more than I can say. Won't you
trust me, in return, to do my best? There are things it is hard to
explain, much less to justify; but your generosity makes everything
easier. All I can do now is to thank you from my soul for understanding.
Your telling me that you wanted me to do right has helped me beyond
expression. If ever there is a hope of realizing what we dreamed of you
will see me back on the instant; and I haven't yet lost that hope.
She read the letter with a rush; then she went over and over it, each
time more slowly and painstakingly. It was so beautifully expressed
that she found it almost as difficult to understand as the gentleman's
explanation of the Bible pictures at Nettleton; but gradually she became
aware that the gist of its meaning lay in the last few words. "If ever
there is a hope of realizing what we dreamed of..."
But then he wasn't even sure of that? She understood now that every word
and every reticence was an avowal of Annabel Balch's prior claim.
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