"Is there anything the matter?" he asked nervously. "Martha worse?"
"No, not that; Martha is around again—it is about Lucy and me." The voice did not sound like Jane's.
The doctor looked at her intently, but he did not speak. Jane continued, her face now deathly pale, her words coming slowly.
"You advised me some time ago about Lucy's going to Trenton, and I am glad I followed it. You thought it would strengthen her love for us all and teach her to love me the better. It has—so much so that hereafter we will never be separated. I hope now you will also approve of what I have just decided upon. Lucy is going abroad to live, and I am going with her."
As the words fell from her lips her eyes crept up to his face, watching the effect of her statement. It was a cold, almost brutal way of putting it, she knew, but she dared not trust herself with anything less formal.
For a moment he sat perfectly still, the color gone from his cheeks, his eyes fixed on hers, a cold chill benumbing the roots of his hair. The suddenness of the announcement seemed to have stunned him.
"For how long?" he asked in a halting voice.
"I don't know. Not less than two years; perhaps longer."
"TWO YEARS? Is Lucy ill?"
"No; she wants to study music, and she couldn't go alone."