"And why?" asked Colonel Bristo, mildly. "Why—when you promised us weeks ago?"
Dick raised his eyes from the ground, and the answer was given and understood without words; yet he felt impelled to speak. He began in a low voice, nervously:
"Without disrespect, sir, I think I may beg of you not to insist on an explanation—either from me, or from—anyone else. It could do no good. It might do—I mean it might cause—additional pain. You have guessed the reason? Yes, you see it clearly—you understand. And—and you seem sorry. Don't let it trouble you, sir. There are lots better than I." He paused, then added uncertainly: "Colonel Bristo, you have been more, far more, than kind and good to me. If you treated me like a son before it was time—well—well, it will all be a pleasant memory to—to take away with me."
"Away?"
"Yes, away; back to Australia," said Dick, expressing his newest thought as though it were his oldest. "Before you get back from the north, I shall probably be on my way."
"Don't do that, Dick—don't do that," said Colonel Bristo, with some feeling.
Personal liking for Dick apart, it was not a pleasant reflection that his daughter had jilted the man who had come from Australia to marry her, and was sending him back there.
Dick answered him sadly.
"It can't be helped, sir. It is all over. It is decent that I should go."
"I don't understand 'em—never understood 'em," muttered the old man vaguely, and half to himself. "Still, there is no one but Dick, I dare swear; who should there be but Dick?"