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It was so foolish. Besides, he's been gone nearly three years. How could he expect me to wait all that time? I haven't had a letter from him for more than a year. I counted it up today." "Does Jimmy Cannable know about him?" "I don't know and I'm afraid to ask." "Harry's a frightfully determined person," mused Betty Carrithers reflectively.
The months and the plans were profitable, it seems, for one splendid evening saw him at the altar-rail beside the fairest girl in all the Southland, the queen of a thousand hearts. Agatha Holmes became Mrs. Cannable, and thereby hangs a tale.
James Cannable for short "Jimmy" remained in New Orleans for many months, estimably employed in the business of evolving a plan that might permit him to journey to the world's end with two hundred thousand pounds in one hand and a certain girl's future in the other.
Certainly it is no blot upon this fair young coquette's fame to admit that she had plighted herself to at least four ardent suitors in days gone by, and it was equally her own affair if she took every woman's privilege of shifting her fancy before she was ready to marry. Unluckily for Agatha, however, she neglected to disengage herself properly from the most recent suitor next before Mr. Cannable.
"Oh, Betty!" sitting up and looking at her friend hopefully. "Of course, I never had a chance at Harry Green. You monopolised him. I liked him immensely from a distance. You go away, and let me explain the situation to him." It was the straw that the drowning person grasps, and Mrs. Cannable clutched it with a shriek of delight.
"And she's really married? Never mind what she told you. It doesn't matter now. Is she happy?" "She adores her husband young Jimmy Cannable. You know him. She will be crazy with joy, Harry, when she finds out that you, too, are happy. She was half mad with remorse and all that. It will " "Heavens, Betty, I thought I was the remorseful one. By George, I love you for telling me this!"
Think of Harry Green waiting all these years, believing in me, as constant as the sun and then to find I've married some one else. You know I love Jimmy Cannable with all my heart. I can't bear the thought of what might happen if he and Harry quarrelled about about those old days." "Don't cry don't be a goose! It's the commonest thing in the world. Every girl has had dozens of affairs."
One day, out of the past and up from the wilds, came the word that Harry Green was on his way home after an absence of three years. Agatha Holmes had been Mrs. Cannable for three months and she had forgotten young Mr. Green as completely as if he never had been a part of her memory. A cablegram addressed to Agatha Holmes one day was delivered to Agatha Cannable.
Cannable were miles westward, hurrying to California. It was one thing to say she would take certain responsibilities off the hands of the bride; it was altogether another proposition to sit there and wait for the man she had admired for four or five years with a constancy that surprised even herself. Her reflections at this specific hour were scarcely definable.
"Have you heard from him you?" demanded Miss Betty in amazement and some little concern. "Of course, Betty; why shouldn't I?" irritably. "Oh, I suppose it's all right," said the other dubiously. "I was only thinking of the of the old days." "Betty," said Mrs. Cannable, sitting up suddenly and grasping her friend's hand, "I'm the most wretched creature on earth. I don't know what I'm to do."
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