“Yes, I do. I begged and prayed for half an hour, I should think, that we might be allowed to write sometimes, but your mother was more inexorable about that than about anything else. She said—and quite truly, of course—that it would be an admission of an engagement between us, and hinder you from having perfect freedom.”
“What do I want with perfect freedom? What does mother know about it, dictating to us like that? Why are we to be treated so—as if we were two babies?” I cried, in a passion of anger and grief. “You had no business to give in to her, Tom. If you really wanted to keep me you ought to have stood out against such tyranny.”
There was an ominous pause, during which I repented myself of this outburst. “Kitty,” he said at last, in a grave, shocked voice that chilled my heart, “that is the hardest thing I have had to bear to-day.”
“I did not mean to say it, Tom; I did not think before I spoke! I know you did your best for us both,” I sobbed, dreadfully sorry to have hurt him, and beginning to feel quite broken down under such an accumulation of misfortunes. “Oh, Tom, what shall we do? what shall we do? How shall I live for two years without knowing whether you are alive or dead even?” Two years at my time of life was tantamount to for ever.
“You shall know that, at any rate,” he replied, rousing himself to comfort me. “And the time will not be so long as you think, especially as it will be so filled up in England. We shan’t be grey-haired or decrepid when we meet again. After all, you won’t be twenty-one.”
I went on crying in silence; I could not stop yet now I had fairly begun. Tom laid my head on his breast, and laid his cheek on my head, and then let me alone for a while that I might have it out. Presently he said, “What’s the day of the month, Kitty?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” I whined dismally.
“Well, I’ll tell you; it’s my birthday. All this business put it out of my head, and I forgot to mention it before. It is my twenty-fourth birthday. Now, cheer up, dear, and listen to me. On this day two years—the day I am twenty-six—I’ll meet you in England, wherever you are. When you get up in the morning, you may feel sure you will meet me somewhere before night.”
“Oh, Tom, what a happy day! but it will never, never come. I might be dead—we might both be dead—before that.”
“Don’t talk of such dreadful things, child; don’t make matters worse than they are. Let us trust one another, and trust in God to keep us safely till we meet again. Let us look forward to that day, Kitty. Nothing shall hinder me from coming to you, unless my father or mother should be ill, or anything should happen, of course, which it would be quite impossible to help. Only sheer force shall keep me from you, after the time when our two years are up.”