She treated me so
very well--with such tact--that, if I ever thought of it afterwards I
put it down to her deep affection for me.
And that evening, when I went to fetch her for a buggy-ride, she
had disappeared. I did not lose any time. I went into New York
and engaged berths on the "Pocahontas", that was to sail on the
evening of the fourth of the month, and then, returning to
Stamford, I tracked out, in the course of the day, that Florence had
been driven to Rye Station. And there I found that she had taken
the cars to Waterbury. She had, of course, gone to her uncle's. The
old man received me with a stony, husky face. I was not to see
Florence; she was ill; she was keeping her room. And, from
something that he let drop--an odd Biblical phrase that I have
forgotten --I gathered that all that family simply did not intend her
to marry ever in her life.
I procured at once the name of the nearest minister and a rope
ladder--you have no idea how primitively these matters were
arranged in those days in the United States. I daresay that may be
so still. And at one o'clock in the morning of the 4th of August I
was standing in Florence's bedroom. I was so one-minded in my
purpose that it never struck me there was anything improper in
being, at one o'clock in the morning, in Florence's bedroom.
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