“We had better end this, Dora; I cannot bear it. Kiss me. Good-bye.”
“And not one blessing? Papa, papa!”
My father rose, and laid his hand solemnly on my head:—“You have been a dutiful girl to me, in all things save this, and a good daughter makes a good wife. Farewell—wherever you go,—God bless you!”
And as he closed the library-door upon me I thought I had taken my last look of my dear father.
It was only six o'clock in the morning when Penelope took me to the station. Nobody saw us—nobody knew. The man at the railway stopped us, and talked to Penelope for full two minutes about his wife's illness—two whole minutes out of our last five.
—My sister would not bid me good-bye—being determined, she said, to see me again, either in London or Liverpool, before we sailed. She had kept me up wonderfully, and her last kiss was almost cheerful, or she made it seem so. I can still see her—very pale, for she had been up since daylight, but otherwise quiet and tearless, pacing the solitary platform—our two long shadows gliding together before us, in the early morning sun. And I see her, even to the last minute, standing with her hand on the carriage-door—smiling.
“Give Doctor Urquhart my love—tell him, I know he will take care of you. And child”—turning round once again with her “practical” look that I knew so well, “Remember, I have written 'Miss Johnston,' on your boxes. Afterwards, be sure that you alter the name. Good-bye,—nonsense, it is not really goodbye.”
Ay, but it was. For how many, many years?
In that dark, gloomy, London church, which a thundery mist made darker and stiller—I first saw again my dear Max.
Mrs. Ansdell said, lest I should be startled and shocked, that it was only the sight of me which overcame him; that he was really better. And so when, after the first few minutes, he asked me, hesitatingly, “if I did not find him much altered?” I answered boldly, “No! that I should soon get accustomed to his grey hair; besides, I never remembered him either particularly handsome or particularly young.” At which he smiled—and then I knew again my own Max! and all things ceased to feel so mournfully strange.