“And there is one thing I wish to say before I go,” continued John Temple, “that I thank you for all your kindness to me while I have been here. I came to your house under most painful circumstances, but you over-looked this—”
“Do not go!” broke in Mrs. Temple, impetuously; “at least, not yet; let us think what can be done, what it will be best to do.”
“I know what it is best for me to do,” answered John Temple, who was now in the act of locking the small portmanteau he meant to carry away with him, “and that is to leave Woodlea at once—good-by, Mrs. Temple.”
He did not offer her his hand, but she took it almost against his will, and held it.
“I have been so lonely,” she said, in a broken voice; “so miserably lonely—and now I will be more lonely still.”
John Temple made no answer to this appeal.
“Bid good-by to my uncle for me,” he said, “as I do not care, in my present temper, to encounter again those two men down-stairs.”
“What if you have killed Henderson? They were sending for the doctor for him as I came upstairs.”
“If I have I can not say I shall deeply regret it, and I am ready to answer for this, as for the rest. But not he! A brute like that is not killed by a blow on the head; and now once more good-by.”
He was gone before she could speak again, and Mrs. Temple sat down and looked around the desolate rooms. She had admired him during the last half-hour; admired his bravery and independence.