“Some of them I learned from you.”
“Me?” I said, in amazement.
“Yes; perhaps I may tell you how it was some day, but not now.” He spoke hurriedly; and immediately began talking about other things; informing me,—as he had now got a habit of doing,—exactly how his affairs stood. Now, they were nearly arranged; and it became needful he should leave the camp, and begin his new duties by a certain day.
After a little more talk, he fixed—or rather, we fixed, for he asked me to decide—that day; briefly, as if it had been like any other day in the year; and quietly as if it had not involved the total ending for the present, with an indefinite future, of all this—what shall I call it?—between him and me, which, to one, at least, had become as natural and necessary as daily bread.
Thinking now of that two or three minutes of silence which followed—I could be very sorry for myself—far more so than then; for then I hardly felt it at all.
Doctor Urquhart rose, and said he must go—he could not wait longer for Mrs. Granton.
“Thursday week is the day then,” he added, “after which I shall not see you again for many months.”
“I suppose not.”
“I cannot write to you. I wish I could; but such a correspondence would not be possible, would not be right.”
I think I answered mechanically, “No.”