“May I stay!” he asked her, and she had mutely acquiesced, and he had closed the door, with a strange throbbing in his heart.
“Won’t you sit down!” she said, and he had shaken his head without speaking, and remained standing with his back to the fire, leaning against the mantelpiece, where he could watch her face the better. He could see that she was looking ill, and the sight smote him. He realised that, perhaps, she was suffering even more than the others. Indeed, it was so, if possible, for in her longing for her father, her heart would turn and turn piteously to Lawrence, and only feel the greater desolation. Yet no word or sign escaped her. Only that frail, wasted expression grew on her face, and the unchanging sadness deepened in her eyes.
“It seems impossible that only a few weeks ago we were all so happy,” he said at last. “It’s very hard when Life lets you go on being careless and light-hearted for years and years; and then, without any warning, suddenly grips you by the throat and makes you feel half strangled by the weight of it all.”
She did not speak, and looking straight before him he ran on:
“It seems as if the death of the dear old General would have been enough in itself, but on the top of that comes this awful separation. Do you know, Eileen, sometimes I think it can’t be true—that it is too awful to be true—that The Ghan House should stand here and none of you in it, and that the sounds craning over to the Parsonage should be from other voices than yours. Sometimes I feel I can’t bear it; and yet I know it will have to be borne.”
Still she did not speak. She was so tired—so tired—and what was there to say?
“And that isn’t all, Eileen,” in a voice that would tremble in spite of himself. “It seems somehow as if it were my fault that you have to go to London, and Paddy must work.”
“Your fault!” she asked wonderingly.
“Yes, Eileen, in a way. You see if I had taken the opportunities that I might have had for the asking when I was eighteen, I should probably have been doing very well indeed now, and been in a position to do something for you all.”
“You are very good, Jack, but it isn’t likely that we should have let you, though we should have loved you for thinking of it.”