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With her face bowed upon that stone, the lonely woman had wept away the long hours of an afternoon that decided her plan for the future. Dr. Grantlin had gone abroad for an indefinite period, and no one knew the contents of his last letter.
Scarcely a month previous to her unexpected release from prison, Beryl had received a letter from Doctor Grantlin, enclosing one addressed to "Sister Ruth, Matron of Anchorage". He wrote that his daughter's health demanded some German baths; and on the eve of sailing, he desired to secure for the prisoner a temporary refuge, should the efforts which he had heard were made to obtain her pardon, prove successful.
Doctor Grantlin is the only person who writes to me, and as his letters are always addressed to your care, I receive them from your hands." "How long do you propose to stay in New York?" "I am not going to New York, and I know not how long I may be detained; but I desire to return without needless delay." "Then you want your money."
"Will you deliver into his hand the note I am writing?" "I certainly will." "How soon?" "Before nine o'clock to-night." "Thank you a thousand times." After a while she folded a sheet containing these words: "DEAR DR. GRANTLIN: "In the extremity of my distress, I appeal to you as a Christian gentleman, as a true physician, a healer of the suffering, and under God, the guardian of my mother's life.
One month had elapsed since the Umilta Sisters of the "Anchorage", following Sister Ruth, walked in the star-lit dawn of a November day, to a neighboring church, and watched Doctor Grantlin lead down the aisle, a pale, trembling woman whose hand he placed in that of the man, waiting in front of the altar.
Foster approached her, and said hesitatingly: "Would it comfort you at all, for me to go and see your mother and explain why you could not return to her? I am very sorry for you, poor thing." "Thank you, but you could not explain, and the sight of a stranger would startle her. In one way you can help me; do you know Dr. Grantlin of New York?" "Only by reputation; but I can find him."
Doctor Grantlin, in compliance with her request, would keep the secret of her retreat; and surely here she might escape forever the scrutiny and the dangerous magnetism of the man who had irretrievably marred her fair, ambitious youth.
If her brother still lived, was the world so wide, that she could never trace his erring passage through it? Would no instinct of natural affection prompt him to seek news of the mother who had idolized him? After a while she must renew the quest, but for the present, safety demanded her seclusion; and since only Doctor Grantlin knew the place of her retreat, she felt secure from discovery.
There is no objection?" "In the name of my dead, whom I shall soon join I desire to thank you, dear Doctor Grantlin, for your kind care of my darling; and especially for your delicate and tender regard for all that remains on earth of my precious mother.
Grantlin before you sleep to-night; and if I survive this awful outrage, perpetrated under the name of law, I will find you some day, and thank you." Looking at the lovely face, pure in its frozen calm, as some marble lily in the fingers of a monumental effigy, Mrs. Foster felt the tears dimming her own vision and said earnestly: "Keep as silent as possible.
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