"Do you mean to be true to me or not when Luttrell comes home, Elizabeth?"
"I shall keep my word to you, Percival. Oh, don't—don't—say that to me again!" she cried, bursting into tears, as she saw the lurking doubt that so constantly haunted his mind.
"I won't," he said. "I will never say it again if you tell me that you trust me as I trust you."
"I do trust you."
"And I am not so base and mean as you said I was?"
For, perhaps, the first time in her life, she kissed him of her own accord. It was with this kiss burning upon his lips that Percival leaned out of the window of the railway-carriage as the train steamed away into the darkness, and waved a last farewell to the woman he loved.
He had been rather imperious and masterful during the last few days; he felt conscious of it now, and was half-sorry for it. It had seemed to him that, if he did this thing for Brian Luttrell, he had at least the right to some reward. And he claimed his reward beforehand, in the shape of close companionship and gentle words from Elizabeth. He did not compel her to kiss him—he remembered his magnanimity in that respect with some complacency—but he had demanded many other signs of good-fellowship. And she had seemed ready enough to render them. She had wanted to go with him and Mr. Heron to London, and help him to prepare for the voyage. But he would not allow her to leave Strathleckie. He had only a couple of days to spare, and he should be hurried and busy. He preferred saying good-bye to her at Dunmuir.
The reason of his going was kept a profound secret from all the Herons except the father, who gave his consent to the plan cordially, though with some surprise.
"But what will become of your profession?" he had asked of Percival. "Won't three or four months' absence put you sadly out of the running?"
"You forget my prospects," Percival replied, with his ready, cynical laugh. "When I've squared the matter with Brian Luttrell, and married Elizabeth, I shall have no need to think of my profession." Mr. Heron shifted his eye-glasses on his nose uneasily, and screwed up his face into an expression of mild disapproval, but couldn't think of any suitable reply. "Besides," said Percival, "I've got a commission to do some papers on Brazilian life. The Evening Mail will take them. And I am going to write a book on 'Modern Morality' as I go out. I fully expect to make my literary work pay my travelling expenses, sir."