"Did I ever down at her feet for anything?"
"If you are tired o' freedom, and easy days, tak' yoursel' to California. And what about the works, while you are seeking dool and sorrow?"
"I shall only be gone about six weeks."
"Fiddlesticks! You are going into captivity—settle your business before you go, and see that you don't forget your mother and sisters' bed and board is in it."
"I shall be back in six weeks. Good-bye, mother. Give my love to Christina and Jamie, I will not trouble them now."
"They are full o' their ain to-do at the present. I'll gie them your message. Good-bye, and see you are home, ere I send after you."
He went hastily downstairs, and could hardly believe he was walking through Traquair House. Pretty girls in dancing dresses were constantly passing him, young men were standing about in groups laughing and talking, and there was the sound of fiddles tuning up in the distance. It was all so unnatural that it affected him like the phantasmal background of a dream. And he was suffering as he had never before suffered in all his life, for jealousy, that brutal, overwhelming passion, had seized him, and he was in a fire constantly growing fiercer. Every thought he now had of Theodora fed it, and he hastened to his club and locked himself in his room. It was clear to him, that he must reach San Francisco by the swiftest means possible. In his condition, he felt delay might mean severe illness, if not insanity.
On the third morning after this determination, when he awoke he was out of sight of land. The wind was high, and the sea rough, but he was not sick, and the tumult of the elements suited his mood very well. He made no friends, and his trouble had such a strong personality, that many divined its reason.
"He looks as if he was after a runaway wife," said one man, and his companion answered: "I do not envy the fellow who has run away with her, he will get no mercy from yonder husband, and as for the wife!"
"God help her!"