And then, suddenly, one early August night, Mr. Jefferson returned. He came up the path, bag in hand, and saw a solitary figure standing on the small front porch, where a latticework sheltered opposing seats. It was a white figure in the early dusk and it rose as he approached.
"The fortnight is not quite up," said Georgiana quietly. "But I put your room in order to-day, hoping you would come. My father never missed anybody so much."
"That sounds very pleasant." He set down his bag and shook hands. "It makes it the harder to say that I must be off again in the morning. And—I shall not be coming back. If it had not been that I could not leave without seeing you and Mr. Warne I should have sent on to ask you to pack and send my trunk."
"Really? How very unexpected! But I would gladly have sent on the trunk," said Georgiana. Something cold clutched at her heart.
"Would you? That sounds rather inhospitable! Do you care to hear my plans?"
"If you care to tell them, Mr. Jefferson."
"I wonder," said he, "if you would be willing to go around to the other porch and sit there. I have a fancy for being where I can get the scent from your garden. I shall miss that spicy fragrance. Is your father still up?"
"He has just gone to bed. He would be very happy if you would go in and speak to him," said Georgiana.
Mr. Jefferson ran upstairs with his bag, and made a brief call upon Mr. Warne. Then he came down, to find Georgiana standing with her arms about a white pillar, her face looking off toward the garden. The lamplight from the central hall, whose rear door opened upon the porch, gleamed rosily out upon her.
Mr. Jefferson came out and stood beside her. "I came back," he said, "just to offer you my friendship in any time of need. I couldn't go away without doing that; I couldn't be content merely to write it back to you. I have lived here in your home with your father and yourself until it has come to seem almost as if I belonged here. But my work calls me; I must go back to it. The book must wait, to be finished in spare moments as other books have been finished. I thought I could give myself this year away from my profession to accomplish this task and perhaps to lay in fresh stores of energy. But I find I can't be easy in mind to do this longer. So I am going back."