There was no chance for delusion or disappointment now. So it seemed.
Yet, as she stood there waiting, with her New England conscience and
her sense of humor still active, of a sudden her imagination was
seized by a new prospect. Why should she tell her secret? What was the
use? There he stood--her Jimmy--good, great, and successful, and she
had helped to make him so. Nothing could ever deprive her of that. The
truth was hers forever. She was only an elderly spinster. Perhaps he
would have forgotten. He was but fifteen when he left her, and he had
never written to her during all these years. Very likely he did not
realize at all what she had done for him. Nothing which he could do
for her now would add to the joy of her heart. Secret? To share it
with him might spoil all. The chances were it was her secret only;
that only she could understand it.

She was close to the President now, and some one at her ear was asking
her name. Suddenly she heard her name called, and stepping forward she
was face to face with her soul's knight, and he was holding her hand.

"I am very glad to see you, Miss Willis," she heard him say.

She had been stepping shyly, with her eyes lowered. At his words,
spoken in a voice which for all its manliness was still the same, she
looked up into his face and murmured, as she pressed his fingers:

"God bless you, sir!"

She did not even say "Jimmy." Then she passed, and--and her secret was
safe.

Six months later Miss Willis was found one morning dead in her bed.