“The conference I hope to have, Mr. Converse, will be the most important one of my life.”
The lawyer blinked, trying to understand.
“I will tell you to-morrow—I trust it will be the happiest news I ever told to any person—I will tell you first.” He hesitated. “You have always given me good advice, sir. One night you told me that only a woman can listen with perfect sympathy and comfort a man's troubles surely.”
Converse came close, put his hands on the young man's shoulders and studied him with intent regard. “My boy,” he said, “go along—and God go with you!”
Bristol tore his hand from the lawyer's clasp and hurried away.
But at the Trelawny he did not find the Kilgours' name on the directory board. The elevator man, the janitor, the manager, told him the same story with the same indifference. The Kilgours had sold their possessions and had removed—they had left no address.
Bristol walked the streets and cursed the stilted folly that had made his farewell to her a parting in which he had pledged nothing, had promised nothing, had left no hopes for the future. He was not consoled by the thought that his farewell to her had been for her own sake, as he had viewed his situation. In the depths of his despair, when he had released her hand at the little gate, he had grimly sacrificed himself—had resolved to save her from himself by final and complete separation.
And thinking of that parting at the little gate, hardly realizing where his wanderings led him, he went down to the great mills which were dark and silent under the shadows of the evening.
Old Etienne had brought a lamp from Mother Maillet's kitchen and had set it on the stoop. He was whittling, and a little boy snuggled close, fixing intent regard on the work.
The evening was bland after a balmy day of Indian summer.