“Often; but I have always avoided telling.”
“It had better be done. It is the only way. But I hoped it would never be necessary. God bless us all!”
He moved toward the door when he had finished, but not until he had shaken her warmly by the hand.
“You will come as before?” she said.
“Of course, there will not be the slightest change on my part. And, Mrs. Simcoe, remember that next week, certainly, I shall meet Miss Hope at Miss Amy Waring’s. Our first meeting had better be there, so before then please—”
He bowed and went out. As he passed the library door he involuntarily looked in. There sat Hope Wayne, reading; but as she heard him she raised the head of golden hair, the dewy cheeks, the thoughtful brow, and as she bowed to him the clear blue eyes smiled the words her tongue uttered—
“Good-by, Mr. Newt, good-by!”
The words followed him out of the door and down the street. The air rang with them every where. The people he passed seemed to look at him as if they were repeating them. Distant echoes caught them up and whispered them. He heard no noise of carriages, no loud city hum; he only heard, fainter and fainter, softer and softer, sadder and sadder, and ever following on, “Good-by, Mr. Newt, good-by!”