No, she believed not only in a fair-minded but in a generous God and she had faith that he was in his Heaven.
She had paid for her folly--if indeed folly it had been. Now with optimism and courage she looked fearlessly forward. That was why, as she caught up her hat, a smile curled her lips.
The house did look pretty, the day was glorious. She was a-tingle with eagerness to see what it might bring.
Calling Prince Hal, she stood before him.
"Take good care of the house, old man," she admonished, as she patted his silky head. "I'll be home soon."
He followed her to the piazza and stopped. His eyes pleaded to go, but he understood his orders and obeying them lay down with paws extended, the keeper of the Homestead.
The train was ten minutes late, and while she paced the platform at Sawyer Falls, the nearest station, Marcia fidgeted.
She had never seen any of Jason's family. At first a desultory correspondence had taken place between him and his sister, Margaret; then gradually it had died a natural death--the result, no doubt, of his indolence and neglect. When the letters ceased coming, Marcia had let matters take their course.
Was it not kinder to allow the few who still loved him to remain ignorant of what he had become and to remember instead only as the dashing lad who in his teens had left the farm and gone to seek his fortune in the great world?
She had written Margaret a short note after his death and had received a reply expressing such genuine grief it had more than ever convinced her that her course had been the wise and generous one. What troubled her most in the letter had been its outpouring of sympathy for herself. She detested subterfuge and as she read sentence after sentence, which should have meant so much and in reality meant so little, the knowledge that she had not been entirely frank had brought with it an uncomfortable sense of guilt. It was not what she had said but what she had withheld that accused her.
Marcia Howe was no masquerader, and until this moment the hypocrisy she had practiced had demanded no sustained acting. Little by little, moreover, the pricking of her conscience had ceased and, fading into the past, the incident had been forgotten. Miles of distance, years of silence separated her from Jason's relatives and it had been easy to allow the deceit, if deceit it had been, to stand.