Maggie Miller's word once passed, Madam Conway
knew it would not be broken, and she unhesitatingly left the young
people together while they said their parting words. A message of love
from Maggie to Rose--a hundred protestations of eternal fidelity, and
then they parted; Henry, sad and disappointed, slowly wending his way
back to the spot where Hagar impatiently awaited his coming, while
Maggie, leaning from her chamber window, and listening to the sound of
his retreating footsteps, brushed away a tear, wondering the while why
it was that she felt so relieved.
CHAPTER XVI
PERPLEXITY
Half in sorrow, half in joy, old Hagar listened to the story which
Henry told her, standing at her cottage door. In sorrow because she
had learned to like the young man, learned to think of him as Maggie's
husband, who would not wholly cast her oil, if her secret should
chance to be divulged; and in joy because her idol would be with her
yet a little longer.
"Maggie will be faithful quite as long as you," she said, when he
expressed his fears of her forgetfulness; and, trying to console
himself with this assurance, he sprang into the carriage in which he
had come, and was driven rapidly away.
He was too late for the night express, but taking the early morning
train he reached New York just as the sun was setting.
"Alone! my brother, alone?" queried Rose, as he entered the private
parlor of the hotel where she was staying with her aunt.
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