“Come, Thomas; I had no wish to be harsh with thee yesterday,” said the old man. “I don’t want to push thee to the wall. This is very sudden. Put off thy going for a week or two. Look here—even if thee don’t bring me the seven hundred and fifty dollars just at the end of the year, I won’t count it against thee.”
“It’s too late now,” said Tom. “My chest’s packed, and father’s going to put it on the stage for me. I’ll not be unmanly and put off the going, now that everything is fixed for it. If I’d have known how thee felt yesterday, I don’t deny that I might have stayed a little while longer. But it won’t do to stop now that I’ve started.”
All this he spoke without looking at Elihu. Elihu took his hand from Tom’s shoulder. He stood for a moment as though he were about to say something farther; then he slowly picked up his hat and left the room, and Tom and Patty were alone.
In about a quarter of an hour the old man came back again. Tom looked up at the clock. It was a quarter to eight, and he knew that the time was come for him to go. Patty and he had been sitting on the sofa, holding one another’s hand. They had been silent for some time, and they both arose without a word.
Tom stood looking long and earnestly at Patty. Her face was bowed upon her breast. “Patty, my darling,” whispered he, and then she looked up.
Her eyes were brimming with the tears that she had kept so bravely hidden until now, and then two bright drops ran slowly down her cheeks.
“Farewell, my darling,” murmured he, in a low, broken voice. He drew her to him, and their lips met in one long kiss. Then he turned, and ran out of the house. He did not say farewell to Elihu, for he could not have spoken the words, if he had tried to do so.
Ah, me! The searching pain of such a parting! Surely, the Good Father would never have put us on this world to live the life here, were it not that there is a world and a life to come wherein such partings shall never be. He hath given that the birds of the air and the beasts of the field shall not suffer dread of grief to come, and but little sorrow for things gone by. Why, then, should He give it to us, His goodliest creatures, to bear these things, if nothing of good or evil was to come of such suffering hereafter?