Their meeting was a very glad one—heart sprang to heart and hand to hand—and neither affected to conceal the pleasure that it gave them. After the first joyous greetings, and the first earnest and affectionate inquiries about each other's health and welfare, both became grave and silent for a little while. Marian was reflecting how to propose to leave him for a three-months' visit to the gay capital, little thinking that Thurston himself was perplexed with the question of how to break to her the news of the necessity of his own immediate departure to England for an absence of at least six or eight months. Marian spoke first.
"Dear Thurston, I have something to propose to you, that I fear you will not like very well; but if you do not, speak freely; for I am not bound."
"I—I do not understand you, love! Pray explain at once," said he, quick to take alarm where she was concerned.
"You know poor little Jacquelina has fallen into very bad health and spirits? Well, her physicians recommend change of air and scene, and her friends have decided to take her to Washington to pass the remainder of the winter. And the little creature has set her sickly fancy upon having me to go with her. Now, I think it is some sort a duty to go, and I would not willingly refuse. Nevertheless, dear Thurston, I dread to leave you, and if you think you will be very lonesome this winter without me—if you are likely to miss me one-half as much as I have missed you these last three weeks, I will not leave you at all."
He put his hand out and took hers, and pressed it, and would have carried it to his lips, but her wicked little pony suddenly jerked away.
"My own dearest Marian," he said; "my frank, generous love! if I were going to remain in this neighborhood this winter, no consideration, I fear, for others' good, would induce me to consent to part with you."
It was now Marian's turn to change color, and falter in her tones, as she asked:
"You—you are not going away?"
"Sweet Marian, yes! A duty—a necessity too imperative to be denied, summons me."
She kept her eyes fixed on his face in painful anxiety.