his breath: 'Good heavens!'
Mrs. Edmonstone had rushed sobbing from the room.
No one followed her. The others stared blankly, then indignantly, at Dick, in whose face concern began to show itself. Then young Maurice spoke up.
'If I were you,' he said hotly to his brother, 'I'd go after her, and tell her you have taken too much wine, and beg her pardon for making a fool of yourself!'
Dick darted an angry glance at him, but rose and stalked from the room. In point of fact, the wine had not had much to do with it—no more and no less than it has to do with anybody's after-dinner speech. At the same time, Dick had not been altogether in his right senses, either then or any time that day. He found his mother weeping as though her heart would break; whereat his own heart smote him so that he came to his senses there and then, and knelt in humility and shame at her feet.
'Dearest mother, forgive me!' he murmured again and again, and took her hand in his and kissed it.
'But are you—are you really going back—back over the seas?' she sobbed.
'Yes. I can't help it, mother! No one knows how miserable I have been over here. Forgive me—forgive me— but I can't stay! I can't indeed! But—but you shall come out too, and the others; and your life will be happier than it has been for years, once you are used to it.'
Mrs. Edmonstone shook her head.
'No; it is impossible,' she said with sudden decision.
'How so? Both Fanny and Maurice, once when I sounded them—'
'Fanny will never go, and I cannot leave her.'
'Why? Mother dear, what do you mean?'
'I mean that your sister is going to be married.'
Married! The mere word ought not to have cut him to the heart; yet, in the state that he was in then, it did. He rose uncertainly to his feet.
'You take my breath away, mother! I know of nothing. Whom is it to?'
'Can you ask?'
'I cannot guess.'
'Then it is to your friend, Mr.—no, Jack—Jack Flint.'
'God bless old Jack!'
That was what Dick said upon the instant. Then he stood silent. And then—Dick sank into a chair, and laid his face upon his hands.
'I can go out alone,' he whispered. 'And—and I wish them joy; from my heart I do! I will go and tell them so.'
XXXIII
HOW DICK SAID GOOD-BYE
The month was October; the day Dick's last in England. Both the day and the month were far spent: in an hour or two it would be dark, in a week or so it would be November. This time to-morrow the R.M.S. Rome, with Dick on board, would be just clear of the Thames; this time next month she would be ploughing through the Indian Ocean, with nothing but Australia to stop her.
'Last days,' as a rule, are made bearable by that blessed atmosphere of excitement which accompanies them, and is deleterious to open sentiment. That excitement, however, is less due to the mere fact of impending departure than to the providential provision of things to be done and seen to at the last moment. An uncomfortable 'rush' is the best of pain-killers when it comes to long farewells. The work, moreover, should be for all hands, and last to the very end; then there is no time for lamentation—no time until the boxes are out of the hall and the cab has turned the corner, and the empty, untidy room has to be set to rights. Then, if you like, is the time for tears.
Now Dick had made a great mistake. He had booked his passage too far in advance. For six weeks he had nothing to think of but his voyage; nothing to do but get ready. Everything was prearranged; nothing, in this exceptional case, was left to the last, the very luggage being sent to the boat before the day of sailing. If Dick had deliberately set himself to deepen the gloom that shadowed his departure, he could not have contrived things better. Maurice, for instance, with great difficulty obtained a holiday from the bank because it was Dick's last day. He might just as well have stopped in the City. There was nothing for him to do. The day wore on in dismal idleness.
About three in the afternoon Dick left the house. He was seen by the others from the front windows. The sight of him going out without a look or a word on his last day cut them to the heart, though Dick had been everything that was kind, and thoughtful, and affectionate since that evening after his return from Yorkshire. Besides, the little family was going to be broken up completely before long: Fanny was to be married in the spring. No wonder they were sad.
Dick turned to the right, walked towards the river, turned to the right again, and so along the London road towards the village.
'It is the right thing,' he kept assuring himself, and with such frequency that one might have supposed it was the wrong thing; 'it is the right thing, after all, to go and say good-bye. I should have done it before, and got it over. I was a fool to think of shirking it altogether; that would have been behaving like a boor. Well, I'll just go in naturally, say good-bye all round, stop a few minutes, and then hurry back home. A month ago I couldn't have trusted myself, but now——'
It was a joyless smile that ended the unspoken sentence. The last month had certainly strengthened his self- control; it had also hardened and lined his face in a way that did not improve his good looks. Yes, he was pretty safe in trusting himself now.
At the corner opposite the low-lying old churchyard he hesitated. He had hesitated at that corner once before. He remembered the other occasion with peculiar vividness to-day. Why should he not repeat the performance he had gone through then? Why should he not take a boat and row up to Graysbrooke? An admirable idea! It
