Now that he had been indicted for a crime of which he was wholly
innocent, his first desire was to know if she still believed in him.
To be sure, there were strong reasons why she should not: his own
confession of his shortcomings; the unfortunate complication in the
Dillingham affair; his subsequent disappearance. It was but natural
that she should have been brought to see the folly of pinning her
faith to such an unstable proposition as himself. His first agonized
protest against her marriage had given place to a stoical acceptance
of the fact. He was paying the price many a man has paid for the
follies of his youth, and he was ready to pay without a protest, if
only she could be made to understand the truth.
All that was best in him demanded justice from her, the justice he had
pleaded for in that long letter sent from San Francisco. Going home
for him meant not only a trial by jury and a verdict of guilty or
innocent. It meant far more. He would know from her own lips whether
she had ever received his letter, and whether or not she believed in
him. On her decision rested his faith in human nature and in God.
The sudden decision to return to America had been reached one night in
Port Said, where he had just joined an exploring expedition bound for
the Valley of the Kings.
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