“No. I would if I could, but I can’t.”
“Where will you be till then?”
“At home, in Denboro, I suppose.”
“Bob, if—if I should want to see you before you go—if I should send for you, would you come? Could you meet me—somewhere—if I asked you to?”
“Of course.... But, Esther, what do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I don’t mean anything. Good-by.”
He ran to the door, but she was hurrying up the beach and, although he called after her, she did not turn.
Nabby Gifford was in the library when Esther reached home and Nabby had something to tell. Esther had no desire to hear it; she had hoped to reach her own room unobserved and to remain there, offering a headache or some other trite excuse for her non-appearance at the supper table. She could not talk with any one, nor listen while others talked. If her uncle were only there! She had much to say to him and—what—what could he say to her?
But Foster Townsend was in Boston and Nabby was in the library. And Nabby blocked her way as she tried to hurry through to the hall and stairs.
“Well,” began Mrs. Gifford, “they got away all right. Varunas says the special car was waitin’ for ’em and they hi’sted poor Mr. Covell into it just as careful as if he was a crate of hens’ eggs. Last Varunas see of him, the doctor was settin’ one side of him and the nurse t’other. And he was layin’ there comf’table, almost, as if he was to home.”