"Do you really think so?" he said, with a faint smile on his troubled face.
"Indeed I do," she answered emphatically.
"Ah," he said, "the worst of it is that I do not believe in coincidences. There is a secret threadless thread of communication running through the whole region of thought and feeling and event."
"Then I must find something else to say to you," Katharine said, still undaunted.
And she looked at him, and for the very life of her she could not keep back the words which came with a rush to her lips:
"Believe in yourself more, Professor Thornton, as I do."
[CHAPTER XIII.]
After a few days Clifford Thornton and his boy started for New York, and Katharine was left once more alone in heart and spirit. She had no idea of the great struggle which had been going on in the man's mind: a double encounter with the past tragedy of his life and the future possibilities of love and happiness. When he said goodbye to her, there seemed to be no sign of regret over the parting which had come as a matter of course. She could not know that behind his impenetrable manner was concealed a passionate longing which appalled him by its insistence and intensity. She could not know that his hurried departure was out of sternness to himself, as well as out of consideration for the boy's well-being. She could not know that once, twice, several times he had nearly thrown up the whole journey for the sake of staying longer near her—in her presence. If she could have known this, she would have been comforted. But she only saw that a grave, sad man had gone back to his past. There had been a moment of travelling on; for that moment they had travelled together. But now the brief journey was over. She lived it all over again: she went through the pleasant meetings, the grave impersonal talks, the sudden passings on, the sudden retreats: the feeling of fellowship, the feeling of aloofness: her championship of him to Mrs Stanhope: her championship of him to himself: her entire belief in him openly expressed direct to him.
"My belief in him waits for him whether he wants it or not. And I am glad that he knows it," she said to herself proudly.