Archie broke into one angry utterance, and then he was gone—this time with a heavy unmistakable bang of the front door. Mrs. Stuart could see him striding past the window, not towards Woodbine Cottage, but the other way.
Would he come back? Might he not think better of his annoyance, and return? She had not meant him to take her at her word. She had not intended really to send him from her. Was it only the allusion to Nancy Dunn which he would not endure? Mrs. Stuart's face grew rigid at this thought.
She stood very long near the window, watching and waiting. Then she sat down, and watched and waited still. The afternoon wore away, and tea-time approached. Mrs. Stuart laid the table, and put the kettle on to boil; but she could not resolve to sit down alone to eat and think; and Archie did not come.
"I've driven him away," she murmured at length. "And he's my only boy."
Time went on, and by-and-by the Church bells began to ring. Would Archie not reappear in time for Church? He had always gone with her.
Mrs. Stuart made herself a cup of tea, and drank it off feverishly. It was of no use to think of eating. Then she dressed, putting on her boots and her best shawl and bonnet. Just at the last moment he would run in—having had tea doubtless somewhere else.
But the last moment came, and with it no Archie. The bells had ceased chiming, and the last five minutes' tinkle had come to an end. Mrs. Stuart stood waiting still.
Suddenly she came to a resolution. She would go and try to find her boy. Why had she not started sooner on this errand? The two had been parted long enough. Mrs. Stuart meant to forgive him now, and to take him back into favour. As for the Dunns, that matter must settle itself somehow. It was not her intention to give way about them; but, on the other hand, she could not forego her boy's companionship. She had had a lesson against pulling the reins too sharply.
"I'll find him and bring him back," she murmured. "I mustn't drive him away. He's getting masterful—not a child any longer, and I mustn't forget that."
And she started on the search, her mother's heart all unstrung and aching with the strain of the afternoon, her whole soul going out in a passionate longing for the boy she so loved.