“I can not sing tonight, Robert.”
“Try ‘The Kail Brose of Old Scotland.’”
“No,” I answered, “there is only one song that fits tonight—‘Lochaber No More.’”
“Sing it then.”
I shook my head, saying, “It’s overwhelming sadness, would be intolerable. You must be happy, if you dare to sing ‘Lochaber No More.’ If you are not, its broken-hearted melody will haunt you for weeks.”
Then we were silent again, until I suddenly looked up, and found Robert regarding me with eyes so full of love and pity, that I dropped my crochet and covered my face with my hands. I could not bear it. He tenderly took my hands in his, and with kisses and affectionate words, told me that he was not insensible to the generous manner with which I had surrendered all his gifts to me.
“Let the gifts go,” I answered; “I have you.”
“My darling!” he said, “let us take a last walk through the rooms, and bid them farewell. We will fix every item in our memories, and I promise you an American home far more beautiful than this.”
I believed him. Without doubt he would keep his word. So I was comforted; and we went together into every room, recalling how we had decided on the creton and papering for one room in the Windermere woods, and for another, sitting on the grassy slope of Kendal Castle. There was some incident of our love, or home, connected with every picture, with every bronze, with every chair and table. We smiled and wept together. Yes, we both wept, and I am not ashamed of the fact. Of course it was intensely sentimental, but in that quality lay our salvation. If we could have gone through those rooms at this farewell hour, without tears and reminiscent smiles, ours would have been a hopeless case; for it is the men and women who are steeped in sentiment and religion, that do things. They 137 are the high-hearted and hopeful, they can face every emergency, and conquer every situation. It is the materialist and the atheist, who flinch and fail, and who never succeed, because they have lost the Great Companion who alone could give permanence and value to whatever they have done.
The next morning we were up with the dawn, and after a leisurely breakfast reached the Caledonian Line in good time. Here we dismissed Kitty, and Robert stayed with me, until the train was ready to start.