“'If you'll retire for a few minutes,' said the President—
“'My heart will break, sir,' said I, 'if I 'm to be in suspense any more. Tell me the worst at once.'
“And I suppose they did tell me, for I knew no more till I found myself in the housekeeper's room, with wet cloths on my head, and the money you see there in the palm of my hand. That told everything. Many were very kind to me, telling how it happened to this and to that man, the first time; and that Asken was thought very unfair, and so on; but I just washed my face with cold water, and put on my hat and went away home, that is, to where I lodged, and I wrote to Polly just this one line: 'Rejected; I 'm not coming back.' And then I shut the shutters and went to bed in my clothes as I was, and I slept sixteen hours without ever waking. When I awoke, I was all right. I could n't remember everything that happened for some time, but I knew it all at last, and so I went off straight to the Royal Barracks and 'listed.”
“Enlisted?—enlisted?”
“Yes, sir, in the Forty-ninth Regiment of Foot, now in India, and sending off drafts from Cork to join them on Tuesday. It was out of the dépôt at the bridge I made my escape to-night to come and see you once more, and to give you this with my hearty blessing, for you were the only one ever stood to me in the world,—the only one that let me think for a moment I could be a gentleman!”
“Come, come, this is all wrong and hasty and passionate, Tom. You have no right to repay your family in this sort; this is not the way to treat that fine-hearted girl who has done so much for you; this is but an outbreak of angry selfishness.”
“These are hard words, sir, very hard words, and I wish you had not said them.”
“Hard or not, you deserve them; and it is their justice that wounds you.”
“I won't say that it is not, sir. But it isn't justice I 'm asking for, but forgiveness. Just one word out of your mouth to say, 'I 'm sorry for you, Tom;' or, 'I wish you well.'”
“So I do, my poor fellow, with all my heart,” cried Con-yers, grasping his hand and pressing it cordially, “and I 'll get you out of this scrape, cost what it may.”