“Stay with a parson? Not much. You’ll see me again one day. I’ll send you a line from time to time and let you know where I am.”
Finally, they swore friendship. They exchanged gifts. Humphrey gave Jeremy a broken pocket-knife, and Jeremy gave Humphrey his silver watch-chain. They shook hands and swore to be friends for ever.
And then the final and terrible tragedy occurred.
V
It came, just as suddenly, as for a romantic climax it should have come.
On the afternoon that followed the friendship-swearing Humphrey did not appear at the accustomed place. Jeremy waited for several hours and then went melancholy home. At breakfast next morning there were those grown-up, mysterious allusions that mean that some catastrophe, too terrible for tender ears, is occurring.
“I never heard anything so awful,” said Aunt Amy.
“It’s so sad to me,” said Jeremy’s mother, sighing, “that people should want to do these things.”
“It’s abominable,” said Mr. Cole, “that they were ever allowed to come here at all. We should have been told before we came.”
“But do you really think——” said Aunt Amy.