“I am greatly obliged, but I must get back to town,” said their visitor; and he spoke in a heavy, bashful way, and looked at Mary as if expecting her to speak, but she did not even glance at him.
“Well,” said Gartram, “if you must, you must.”
The big lawyer looked at Claude again in a disappointed way, and his eyes seemed to say, “Coax me a little more.”
But Claude felt pained as she glanced from one to the other, for there was something too incongruous in the idea of those two becoming engaged, for her to wish to aid the matter in the slightest way, and she held out her hand for the parting.
“I suppose it will be three months before we see you again, Mr Trevithick,” she said.
“Yes, Miss Gartram, three months; unless,” he added hastily, “Mr Gartram should summon me before.”
“No fear, Trevithick; four days a year devoted to legal matters are quite enough for me.”
“We none of us know, Mr Gartram,” said the big man solemnly. “Good-day, Miss Gartram; good-day, Miss Dillon,” and he shook hands with both slowly, as if unwillingly, before he strode away.
“I don’t think Trevithick is well,” said Gartram.