"I must be getting on my way," he said; "perhaps I might just go up to the nursery, to say good-bye to Miss Moore and Miss Baba?"
"Of course," Cicely answered with her pretty smile. "Baba would bitterly resent it, if her dear doctor went across the sea, without saying good-bye to her."
"If—you go across the sea," she mentally ejaculated, as the door closed behind his tall form, and she settled herself down to listen to Mrs. Deane's totally uninteresting conversation. "If—you—go—across—the sea!"
CHAPTER XXII.
"I CAME TO-DAY, TO TELL YOU SO."
If Fergusson had left the great house in the square with his spirits at zero, they had travelled many degrees below that point on the following morning. He sat alone in the room he used as study and general sitting-room, and, spread on the table before him were two letters, one from a house-agent informing him that a possible client was in treaty for his house; the other from a medical practitioner in the north of England, who expressed a desire to come in person, and learn all particulars about the practice.
"Burning my boats with a vengeance," Fergusson muttered, looking round the room which he had learnt to love, and smiling a troubled smile that had no joy behind it. That glance round the room, brought back to his remembrance, in an odd flash of memory, Christina's first visit to him, when he was occupying Dr. Stokes's house in the country. There was real humour in his smile when he recalled the girl's look of surprise, and her naïve acknowledgment of the discrepancy she saw between his appearance, and that of the house in which he was. Looking round the study of his South London abode, he wondered whether Christina would consider his present surroundings more in keeping with his personality, than those in which she had first seen him. Certainly there was nothing here of the smug respectability which had characterised Dr. Stokes's well-kept establishment. No two chairs matched one another, but they were all comfortable and restful, the walls were distempered a soft rich yellow that gave an effect of sunlight even on the greyest days, and the few pictures hanging against the sunny background, were excellent photographs framed in oak, and representing some of the best Old Masters of the Italian School. Bookcases covered a considerable amount of the wall space, books covered the tables, and were even piled upon a corner of the rather faded Turkey carpet. The box outside the open window was filled with wallflowers, and their penetrating fragrance made the room sweet. The view was not a wholly uninspiring one, for a narrow strip of garden lay behind the house, and glimpses of waving boughs were visible against the blue sky of May. The roar of traffic from the main road a few paces away, the distant hum of humanity, these were sounds dear to the ears of the doctor, to whom human beings made so deep an appeal; he even had a weakness for the raucous street cries, audible now and again above the persistent roar, that was like the noise of Atlantic breakers on a rock-bound coast.
He was sorry to be leaving the teeming London world, in which he had spent so much of his busy life—more sorry than anyone else could realise, he reflected grimly. Possibly, to the rest of mankind, a practice in South London might not appear the acme of bliss—a practice that dealt almost exclusively with the sordid, the poor, even the criminal; but—he loved his work, he loved his people; it was intolerably hard to tear himself away from them all, and yet—the tearing was inevitable.
"I can't stay here within measurable reach—of her—and of temptation, and—play the man," his reflections ran on, "so—so I must run away." He laughed shortly, as he picked up the two letters from his table, and re-read them, feeling absurdly disinclined to reply to either. He knew he must go. With the unwavering directness of an upright man, when making a decision, he had seen what he conceived to be the right path clearly marked for him; and, having seen it, he had no thought of drawing back from following it. But, with all his strength and decision of character, he nevertheless felt, at this juncture, a deep repugnance to writing those letters, which would, as he expressed it to himself, have the effect of burning his boats behind him. He knew that good work awaited him in that far western land, where he had determined to begin a new life; he knew, too, that to remain in England within call, as it were, of a temptation which his sense of what was right and honourable, bade him resist, was merely dallying with that sense of right; and yet, the human man within him, cried out against the necessity which he had faced, and acknowledged to be inevitable. Although he already actually knew the contents of those two letters by heart, he read both through again, then deliberately folded, and set them aside, with another short laugh.