'So there's your fate, Dick,' concluded his friend.
'You forget the influence of the press,' returned Dr. May. 'People don't propose such guerdons without knowing who is to earn them.'
'Yes, she has long believed in King John,' said Ethel.
Meantime Averil Ward was acquiescing in all Henry's projects with calm desperate passiveness. She told Mary that she had resolved that she would never again contend with Henry, but would let him do what he would with herself and her sisters. Nor had his tenderness during her illness been in vain; it had inspired reliance and affection, such as to give her the instinct of adherence to him as the one stay left to her. With Leonard shut up, all places were the same to her, except that she was in haste to escape from the scenes connected with her lost brother; and she looked forward with dull despairing acquiescence to the new life with which Henry hoped to shake off the past.
A colony was not change enough for Henry's wishes; even there he made sure of being recognized as the convict's brother, and was resolved to seek his new home in the wide field of America, disguising his very name, as Warden, and keeping up no communication with the prisoner except under cover to Dr. May.
To this unfailing friend was committed the charge of the brother. He undertook to watch over the boy, visit him from time to time, take care of his health, and obtain for him any alleviations permitted by the prison rules; and as Henry reiterated to Averil, it was absolutely certain that everything possible from external kindness was thus secured. What more could they themselves have done, but show him their faces at the permitted intervals? which would be mere wear and tear of feeling, very bad for both parties.
Averil drooped, and disputed not—guessing, though not yet understanding, the heart hunger she should feel even for such a dreary glimpse.
Every hour seemed to be another turn of the wheel that hurried on the departure. The successor wished to take house and furniture as they stood, and to enter into possession as soon as possible, as he already had taken the practice. This coincided with Henry's burning impatience to be quit of everything, and to try to drown the sense of his own identity in the crowds of London. He was his sisters' only guardian, their property was entirely in his hands, and no one had the power of offering any obstacle, so that no delay could be interposed; and the vague design passed with startling suddenness to a fixed decision, to be carried into execution immediately. It came in one burst upon the May household that Averil and her sisters were coming to spend a last evening before their absolute packing to go on the Saturday to London, where they would provide their outfit, and start in a month for America.
The tidings were brought by Mary, who had, as usual, been spending part of the morning with Averil. No one seemed to be so much taken by surprise as Tom, whose first movement was to fall on his sisters for not having made him aware of such a preposterous scheme. They thought he knew. He knew that all the five quarters of the world had been talked of in a wild sort of a way; but how could he suppose that any man could be crazed enough to prefer to be an American citizen, when he might remain a British subject?
Repugnance to America was naturally strong in Tom, and had of late been enhanced by conversations with an Eton friend, who, while quartered in Canada, had made excursions into the States, and acquired such impressions as high-bred young officers were apt to bring home from a superficial view of them. Thus fortified, he demanded whether any reasonable person had tried to bring Henry Ward to his senses.