“Anything the matter?” he asked, kindly. “You don’t look at all the thing. Have you heard any bad news?”
Ah, that was a good idea! Claverton remembered that the post had come in that morning, bringing him two or three letters, which he had thrust unopened into his pocket. This would cover his retreat. He would be able to leave without any awkward explanations—called away suddenly. They would think he had heard of the death of some relative; and grimly he thought to himself how the death of a hecatomb of relatives would be mere gossip compared with the “news” he really had heard.
“Yes,” he replied, “that’s what it is; and I am afraid I must leave here as soon as possible.”
“H’m! But where’s your horse?”
“My horse? Oh, I walked.”
“H’m,” said the old man again. “Now look here, Arthur, my boy, I’ve got through a pretty long spell of life, during which I’ve learnt the art of putting two and two together. Whatever you may have heard to upset you, didn’t come through the post. Now I don’t want to pry into your affairs, but I can see tolerably well now how things have gone. Is it so bad as you think?”
There was a world of delicate, kindly-hearted sympathy in the other’s voice, and Claverton felt as if it did him good. Grasping the hand extended to him, he replied:
“It is. I will not try to convince you that you have got upon the wrong tack, even if it would not be useless to do so. I must go from here; you will understand, you will appreciate my reasons, and know why this place, which has been a dear home to me, the only real home I have ever known, has become unendurable now, at any rate for a time.”
His voice failed him, and he broke down. Recovering himself with an effort, he went on:
“I know it seems abominably hard-hearted, ungrateful even, suddenly to leave the best and kindest friends I have, in this way, to say nothing of the possible inconvenience to you. Yet I am going to trespass even more upon your large-heartedness. I am going to ask you to help me to leave quietly, not to make it known that I have done so until after I am gone, and even then to let it be supposed that something I heard through the post has compelled my departure. Is this too much? I do not ask it so much for my own sake, as for—for another’s.”