Hamilton’s hands trembled as he broke the seal, the wax cracking beneath his thumb. The paper had yellowed ever so slightly with its long travel, the ink softened by time, yet the words leapt at him as though they had been written only yesterday. His breath caught at the line—“I plan to set out for New York in brief”—and all at once, the date scrawled at the top burned into his vision.

A month past.

The letter slipped against his palm, his grip faltering, and he pressed it against his chest as though the gesture could undo the cruel march of days. His eyes, sharp yet heavy with sleeplessness, lingered on Laurens’s familiar hand. There was tenderness in every curve of the letters, a warmth that seemed almost to mock him now.

He whispered to the empty room, voice low, raw, scarcely more than breath: “…A month. A month and I knew nothing.”

He rose then, pacing with restless steps, his boots striking the wooden floor in uneven rhythm. The letter shook in his hand as he read and reread each line, his lips parting at the words—“your heart, as mine, never ceases to be yours”—before closing tightly, as if to cage some unspoken reply.

At last, he halted by the window, the night pressing close against the panes. He swallowed hard, his jaw set with that familiar resolve.

“I will not endure another night under this roof, blind and waiting,” he murmured, almost to himself. His eyes drifted toward the harbor lights in the distance, faint but insistent. “They say a ship docks before the dawn… and I will be there. If fate has not robbed me yet, I will see him step ashore.”

He folded the letter with care, slipping it into his coat as though it were some fragile relic. Then, without another glance at the house behind him, he stepped into the night, the air cool and sharp, his heart beating with the mad hope that perhaps, just perhaps, Laurens was nearer than the cruel date suggested.