“But to leave him—to desert him—”
“It is no eternal separation. In a year or two you will rejoin him, never to part again. Take my word for it, the consciousness that his son is accomplishing a high duty will be a strong fund of consolation for absence. It is to mistake him to suppose that he could look on your present life without deep regret.”
“Ah! is that so?” cried he, with an expression of pain.
“He has never owned as much to me; but I have read it in him, just as I have read in you that you are not the man to stoop to an ignominious position to purchase a life of ease and luxury.”
“You were right there!” said he, warmly.
“Of course I was. I could not be mistaken.”
“You shall not be, at all events,” said he, hurriedly. “How cold your hand is! Let us return to the house.” And they walked back in silence to the door.
CHAPTER XV. MRS. PENTHONY MORRIS AT HER WRITING-TABLE
It was late on that same night,—very late. The villa was all quiet and noiseless as Mrs. Morris sat at her writing-table, engaged in a very long letter. The epistle does not in any way enter into our story. It was to her father, in reply to one she had just received from him, and solely referred to little family details with which our reader can have no interest, save in a passing reference to a character already before him, and of whom she thus wrote:—