He stopped, and she came towards him. One look at his face revealed the whole truth. She did not speak, but took his hand in hers, with a mute expression of sympathy which overpowered him.
"Don't! don't!" he said. "Let me go, Bessie! I'm a fool—it's all over now! There, don't mind me—I'll be better soon! I've got a chance to go to Europe for awhile, in fact it's to Calcutta. I shall be all right when I come back."
"Oh, my poor old Tom! Elsie is a wicked girl to have trifled with you so."
"She didn't!" he exclaimed, indignantly. "Don't blame her. I won't have it. There's nobody in fault but me. I deserve it all! I'm a blundering, wrong-headed donkey, and she's lovely as—as—"
Here Tom broke down, and going to a window looked resolutely out.
"But you won't go away, Tom?" said Elizabeth following him.
"Yes, I will. I shan't be gone but a few months. Don't try to keep me. I'll be all right when we meet again."
"Oh, Tom, Tom!" said Elizabeth.
"Now, be still; that's a good girl; I don't want to be pitied. It's of no consequence, not the slightest."
He broke abruptly away, and disappeared, leaving Elizabeth full of sympathy for his distress, and regret at the idea of losing her old playmate—she had depended on him so much during her husband's absence.