Sir Hugh drew a breath of satisfaction. He glanced round at Augustine. It was not a venomous glance, but, with its dart of steely intention, it paid a debt of vengeance. "So,—we needn't say anything more about it," he said. "And—dearest—perhaps now you'll tell Augustine that he may go and leave us together."
Amabel left her husband's side and went to her chair near the table. A strange calmness breathed from her. She sat with folded hands and downcast eyes.
"Augustine, come here," she said.
The young man came and stood before her.
"Give me your hand."
He gave it to her. She did not look at him but kept her eyes fixed on the ground while she clasped it.
"Augustine," she said, "I want you to leave me with my husband. I must talk with him. He is going away soon. Tomorrow—tomorrow morning early, I will see you, here. I will have a great deal to say to you, my dear son."
But Augustine, clutching her hand and trembling, looked down at her so that she raised her eyes to his.
"I can't go, till you say something, now, Mother;"—his voice shook as it had shaken on that day of their parting, his face was livid and convulsed, as then;—"I will go away tonight—I don't know that I can ever return—unless you tell me that you are not going to take him back." He gazed down into his mother's eyes.
She did not answer him; she did not speak. But, as he looked into them, he, too, for the first time, saw in them what she had seen in his.