He rushed through his breakfast—it was a banquet, if he had known it, prepared by devoted hands—and all but ran through the early morning streets to the dismantled shop and home on the little side street. Sue admitted him, and took him through to the rear garden where Jane, in working dress, was packing a box. She stood up, and the colour rushed into her face at sight of him.
“I have my call—I go to-night. I’m the lucky one to go first and leave you behind. But I’m sorry about that, too.”
She pulled off the gloves which had protected her hands, unfastened her apron, gave both to Sue, and sent her inside with them. Then she faced him.
“Somehow I knew it was close at hand,” she said. “To-night! Well——”
“This afternoon will you go with Doctor and Mrs. Burns and me—and Sue—I should like to take Sue—up to the hills where the Dunstans lived? I want to say a few things to those people up there before I go. I always meant to do it, and never seemed to get around to it. Somehow I can’t go away without doing it. And I want you there.”
She nodded. “Of course I’ll go. I—yes, I’ll go—of course. Oh, how glad you are to be off—and how I envy you!”
“Are you coming to church this morning?”
“Oh!—I—think—not.”
“Jane!”
She looked up at him and away again. “I don’t think I—can,” she said.