Thus the two years of prosperity had ended in deeper gloom than that in which they started. Christmas had gone by in the usual festivities, and rather strangely the whole family had met together on Christmas Day—for the last time.
At the beginning of the New Year, Maggie and Deborah had gone away to stay with some friends at the other end of the town, and Maggie had gone two days previous to Deborah, who was going in for an examination on the second day. And Deborah, whose love for her father seemed to grow with each succeeding day, felt the short separation greatly.
“It’s only for five days,” she said to herself. “And he’s coming to bring us home on Saturday, but how I wish he were coming too.” For lately he had looked very, very ill. His face had been grey and his eyes curiously absent, and he had had a bad cough for many weeks, and he said he suffered greatly from lumbago.
Besides, he had not gone down to town so often lately—or if so not till later in the afternoon—and there seemed very little money.
Deborah, seeing this, prayed all the more earnestly the simple prayer.
“He’s all right,” she used to say at times. “It’s only me, I’m fidgety.”
But on the day when she had to go away she felt as if she could scarcely bear to part with him.
Whilst she was busy making her preparations in the morning for going he read the paper. But every now and again she ran down to speak to him, just for the sake of saying something, but he seemed even more silent than usual.
At last when she was ready he came up into the lobby to see her off.
She threw her arms round him and kissed him with all the passionate love she had for him, and he kissed her, and said to her,—