My aunt Dorothy stood weeping; Janet was at the window, no friend to either of us.
I said to her, 'You have your wish.'
She shook her head, but did not look back.
My grandfather watched me, step by step, until I had reached the door.
'You're going, are you?' he said. 'Then I whistle you off my fingers!'
An attempt to speak was made by my father in the doorway. He bowed wide of the company, like a blind man. I led him out.
Dimness of sight spared me from seeing certain figures, which were at the toll-bar of the pier, on the way to quit our shores. What I heard was not of a character to give me faith in the sanity of the companion I had chosen. He murmured it at first to himself:
'Waddy shall have her monument!'
My patience was not proof against the repetition of it aloud to me. Had I been gentler I might have known that his nature was compelled to look forward to something, and he discerned nothing in the future, save the task of raising a memorial to a faithful servant.