“Perhaps you’ve heard about my boy Robert?” he added, full of his own troubles.
“No, I have not. Is anything the matter with him?” asked Stuart, his sympathy at once enlisted.
“It’s nigh broke his mother’s heart, sir; but he’s gone off to Australia with Reuben Morris all of a sudden, without a word of warning.”
Vane felt a thrill of joy pass through her, and her spirits at once began to revive.
“Australia? Why? But they can not have gone yet—they must be in London. It is one thing to say you will start on such a voyage, and another thing to do it. It takes two or three days, Bright, you know, to make the necessary arrangements.”
The farmer looked at the young squire’s flushed, eager face with a little surprise and much gratitude.
“Thank you, sir. It’s like you, Mr. Stuart, always to be kind; but it’s no use now, sir. Robert started last night; by this time they’re out of the Channel. It’s a hard thing to see one’s only son took from us, Mr. Stuart, and all along of a bit of a girl.”
“A girl!” echoed Stuart, shivering, he scarcely knew why.
“Ay, sir—that lass of Morris’, that nameless thing! She just bewitched him, has played the fool with him, said him ‘No,’ when he’d have made her his wife, and now has took him on again, for they’ve all gone out together.”
“Margery!” exclaimed Stuart, in a dull, startled way. “She—they have gone together?”