There was a silence. Then Bram said, in a very low voice, very sadly—
“No.”
He did not know whether he was not cruel, hard, in this decision. But he could not help himself. The feeling he had for Claire, for his first love, for his ideal, could never die; but it had changed sadly; greatly changed. It was love still, but with a difference.
Mr Cornthwaite, however, was scarcely satisfied.
“You will not think of leaving us, at least yet?” he said presently. Then, as he saw a look he did not like in Bram’s face he hastened to add—“You are bound to wait until my son is better—or worse; until I am free to go to the office. I cannot be making changes now.”
“Very well, Mr. Cornthwaite. But I must have a holiday, perhaps a two or three days’ holiday, to start from to-morrow morning.”
“All right. Good-night.”
They were in the hall, and Bram, who had refused to re-enter the study, had his fingers upon the outer door.
“Good-night,” said he.
And he went out. He was full of a new idea, which had suddenly struck him even while he was talking to Mr. Cornthwaite. He would not go to London; poor little Claire, abandoned by her lover, or rather by his father, would not have stayed there. It had flashed into his mind that there was one spot in the world to which she would direct her wandering steps if left all alone in the world. It was the little Yorkshire town of Chelmsley, where her mother lay buried.