Suppose he gave them up—the priceless possessions? Suppose he went away to that sure retreat that was still left him—the past? It was a sacrifice. To give up the here and now, for the far off, the almost forgotten. All that happy other life, that had once held all for which he cared, seemed thin and dreamlike beside the vivid glories of the life here, now. Yet he remembered how once that life, in King James’s time, had seemed the best thing in the world, and how he had chosen to come back from it, to help a helpless middle-aged ne’er-do-weel of a tramp—Beale. Well, he had helped Beale. He had done what he set out to do. For Beale’s sake he had given up the beautiful life for the sordid life. And Beale was a new man, a man that Dickie had made. Surely now he could give up one beautiful life for another—for the sake of these, his flesh and blood, who had so readily, so kindly, so generously set him in the place that had been theirs?
More and more it came home to Dickie that this was what he had to do. To go back to the times when James the First was King, and never to return to these times at all. It would be very bitter—it would be like leaving home never to return. It was exile. Well, was Richard Lord Arden to be afraid of exile—or of anything else? He must not just disappear either, or they would search and search for him, and never know that he was gone forever. He must slip away, and let the father of Edred and Elfrida be, as he had been, Lord Arden. He must make it appear that he, Richard Lord Arden, was dead. He thought over this very carefully. But if he seemed to be dead, Edred and Elfrida would be very unhappy. Well, they should not be unhappy. He would tell them. And then they would know that he had behaved well, and as an Arden should. Don’t be hard on him for longing for just this “little human praise.” There are very few of us who can do without it; who can bear not to let someone, very near and dear, know that we have behaved rather decently on those occasions when that is what we have done.
It took Dickie a long time to think out all this, clearly, and with no mistakes. But at last his mind was made up.
And then he asked Edred and Elfrida to come up to the cave with him, because he had something to tell them. When they were all there, sitting on the smooth sand by the underground stream, Dickie said—
“Look here. I’m not going on being Lord Arden.”
“You can’t help it,” said Edred.
“Yes, I can. You know how I went and lived in King James’s time. Well, I’m going there again—for good.”
“You shan’t,” said Elfrida. “I’ll tell father.”
“I’ve thought of all that,” Dickie said, “and I’m going to ask the Mouldiwarps to make it so that you can’t tell. I can’t stay here and feel that I’m turning you and your father out. And think what Edred did for me, in this very cave. No, my mind’s made up.”
It was, and they could not shake it.
“But we shan’t ever see you again.”
Dickie admitted that this was so.
“And oh, Dickie,” said Elfrida, with deep concern, “you won’t ever see us again either. Think of that. Whatever will you do without us?”
“That,” said Dickie, “won’t be so bad as you think. The Elfrida and Edred who live in those times are as like you as two pins. No, they aren’t really! Oh, don’t make it any harder. I’ve got to do it.”
There was that in his voice which silenced and convinced them. They felt that he had, indeed, to do it.
“I could never be happy here—never,” he went on; “but I shall be happy there. And you’ll never forget me, though there are one or two things I want you to forget. And I’m going now.”
“Oh, not now; wait and think,” Elfrida implored.
“I’ve thought of nothing else for a month,” said Dickie, and began to lay out the moonseeds on the smooth sand.
“Now,” he said, when the pattern was complete, “I shall hold Tinkler and the white seal in my hand and take them with me. When I’ve gone, you can put the moonseeds in your pocket and go home. When they ask you where I am, say I am in the cave. They will come and find my clothes, and they’ll think I was bathing and got drowned.”
“I can’t bear it,” said Elfrida, bursting into sobs. “I can’t, and I won’t.”
“I shan’t be really dead, silly,” Richard told her. “We’re bound to meet again some day. People who love each other can’t help meeting again. Old nurse told me so, and she knows everything. Goodbye, Elfrida.” He kissed her. “Goodbye, Edred, old chap. I’d like to kiss you too, if you don’t mind. I know boys don’t, but in the times I’m going to men kiss each other. Raleigh and Drake did, you know.”
The boys kissed shyly and awkwardly.
“And now, goodbye,” said Richard, and stepped inside the crossed triangles of moonseeds.
“I wish,” he said slowly, “oh, dear Mouldiwarps of Arden, grant me these last wishes. I wish Edred and Elfrida may never be able to tell what I have done. And I wish that in a year they may forget what I have done, and let them not be unhappy about me, because I shall be very happy. I know I shall,” he added doubtfully, and paused.
“Oh, Dickie, don’t,” the other children cried out together. He went on—
“I
