"Thank God," said he, under his breath. And then he pulled me
into the parlor and shut the door.
"They told me at the station that Phillippa was to be married to
Mark Foster to-day. I couldn't believe it, but I came here as
fast as horse-flesh could bring me. Aunt Rachel, it can't be
true! She can't care for Mark Foster, even if she had forgotten
me!"
"It's true enough that she is to marry Mark," I said,
half-laughing, half-crying, "but she doesn't care for him. Every
beat of her heart is for you. It's all her stepma's doings.
Mark has got a mortgage on the place, and he told Isabella Clark
that, if Phillippa would marry him, he'd burn the mortgage, and,
if she wouldn't, he'd foreclose. Phillippa is sacrificing
herself to save her stepma for her dead father's sake. It's all
your fault," I cried, getting over my bewilderment. "We thought
you were dead. Why didn't you come home when you were alive?
Why didn't you write?"
"I DID write, after I got out of the hospital, several times," he
said, "and never a word in answer, Aunt Rachel. What was I to
think when Phillippa wouldn't answer my letters?"
"She never got one," I cried. "She wept her sweet eyes out over
you. SOMEBODY must have got those letters."
And I knew then, and I know now, though never a shadow of proof
have I, that Isabella Clark had got them--and kept them. That
woman would stick at nothing.
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