‘No; I wish I could!’
‘Never mind; it will turn up. You have tired yourself.’
‘But, Arthur, are you not coming home to-night?’
‘Didn’t I tell you? If I can’t get away by the seven o’clock train, I thought of sleeping there. Ten o’clock, I declare! I shall miss the train!’
She came to the head of the stairs with him, asking plaintively, ‘When DO you come home? To-morrow, at latest?’
Perhaps it was her querulous tone, perhaps a mere boyish dislike to being tied down, or even it might be mere hurry, that made him answer impatiently, ‘I can’t tell—as it may happen. D’ye think I want to run away! Only take care of yourself.’
This was in his coaxing voice; but it was not a moment when she could bear to be turned aside, like an importunate child, and she was going to speak; but he saw the wrong fishing-rod carried out, called hastily to James, ran down-stairs, and was gone, without even looking back at her.
The sound of the closing door conveyed a sense of utter desolation to her over-wrought mind—the house was a solitary prison; she sank on the sofa, sobbing, ‘Oh, I am very, very miserable! Why did he take me from home, if he could not love me! Oh, what will become of me? Oh, mamma! mamma!’