"Oh, going away! I must do that. You do see that, don't you? And Oliver wouldn't have anything else. Try to think kindly and—and pleasantly of me. Remember our good times, dear Arthur, not this—this awful evening!"
"I've been such a fool—and now such a blackguard! Because now if I could, I'd——"
"Hush, hush! Don't say things like that. They're not really true, and they make you feel worse. We're just dear old friends parting for a while, because we must."
"Perhaps I shall never see you again, Bernadette—and you've been pretty nearly everything in my life since we've known one another."
"Dear Arthur, you must let me go now. I can't bear any more of it. Oh, I am so desperately sorry, Arthur!" A tear rolled down her cheek.
"Never mind, Bernadette. It'll be all right about me. And—well, I can't talk about you, but you needn't be afraid of my thinking anything—anything unkind. Good-bye."
She drew her hands away, and he relinquished his hold on them without resistance. There was no more to be said—no more to be done. She stood where she was for a moment; he turned his chair round to the table again, spread out his arms, and laid his face on his hands. Just the same attitude in which she had found him! But she knew that his distress was deeper. Despair and forlornness succeeded to anger and fear; and, on the top of them, the poor boy accused himself of disloyalty to his house, to his cousin, to herself. He saw himself a blackguard as well as a fool.
She could not help speaking to him once again. "God bless you, Cousin Arthur," she said very softly. But he did not move; he gave no sign of hearing her. She turned and went very quietly out of the room, leaving her poor pet in sad plight, her poor toy broken, behind her.
It was more than she had bargained for, more than she could bear! Silently and cautiously, but with swift and resolute steps, she passed along the corridor to the hall, and mounted the stairs. She was bent on shutting out the vision of Arthur from her sight.