"No better thing could have happened from my point of view," he declared, "for if she'd married anybody else in the world, I should have been called to say 'good-bye' to her. Since she's chosen you, there's no necessity for me to do so. I hope you're going on living at North Hill, and I trust you're going to let me do the same. Of course, it would be an impossible arrangement if you were dealing with anybody but me; but since we are what we are in spirit and temper and understanding, I claim that I may stop. The only difference I can see is this: that whereas at present, when we dine, you sit between Estelle and me, in future I shall sit between Estelle and you."
"Not even that," vowed the lover. "Why shouldn't I go on sitting between you?"
"No—you'll be the head of the house in future."
"The charm of this house is that there's no head to it," said Estelle, "and Raymond isn't going to usurp any such position just because he means to marry me."
But distractions broke in upon their happiness. Ernest Churchouse fell grievously ill and lacked strength to fight disease; while there came news from Knapp that the farmer was tired of Abel and wished him away.
For their old friend none could prolong his life; in the case of the boy, Raymond decided that Sabina had better see him and go primed with a definite offer. Abel's father did not anticipate much more trouble in that quarter. He guessed that the lad, now in his seventeenth year, was sufficiently weary of the land and would be glad to take up engineering. He felt confident that Sabina must find him changed for the better, prepared for his career and willing to enter upon it without greater waste of time. He invited the boy's mother to learn if he felt more friendly to him, and hoped that Abel had now revealed a frame of mind and a power of reasoning, that would serve to solve the problem of his career, and finally abolish his animosity to his father.
Sabina went to see her son and heard the farmer first. He was not unfriendly, but declared Abel a responsibility he no longer desired to incur.
"He's just at a tricky age—and he's shifty and secret—unlike other lads. You never know what's going on in his mind, and he never laughs, or takes pleasure in things. He's too difficult for me, and my wife says she's frightened of him. As to work, he does it, but you always feel he's got no love for it. And I know he means to bolt any day. I've marked signs; so it will be better for you people to take the first step."
The farmer's wife spoke to similar purpose and added information that made Sabina more than uneasy.
"It's about this friend of his, Miss Waldron, that came to see him backalong," she explained. "He'd talk pretty free about her sometimes and was very proud of it when he got a letter now and again. But since she's wrote and told him she's going to be married, he's turned a gloomier character than ever. He don't like the thought of it and it makes him dark. 'Tis almost as if he'd been in love with the lady. You do hear of young boys falling in love before their time like that."