“But if you should be kept, Tom?”
“I shall provide for that possible, though most improbable, contingency, by writing to you beforehand, under cover to your father, and asking him to give you the letter at night, if I have not turned up during the day. He has trusted me, and I can trust him.”
Here our conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door, and it struck us simultaneously that we must have much exceeded our half-hour.
“Yes?” interrogated Tom loudly.
“I want you, Kitty,” replied mother’s low, clear voice; and we rose from the sofa together, and stood clasped in each other’s arms.
“God bless you, my own dear love,” he whispered, as I received his parting kiss in floods of tears. “Remember, you are no longer bound to me, except by your love.”
“I shall be bound by that always, Tom; and you must never believe anything else, whatever people may tell you. Come for me on your birthday, and you will find me ready for you.”
“I will—I will! And now I must go, darling—I will go out by the verandah, for I can’t see anybody else just now. Apologize to your mother for me.”
“And what about to-morrow, Tom, and next day, and all the time till we go?”
“We shall meet sometimes, I suppose, Kitty, but we must not have any walks by ourselves any more.”