“Father, before you speak ... I know you are going to say something very, very solemn; I know you when you’re in your solemn moments; I like you best of all then. You seem like Jesus Christ then. Don’t you feel like Jesus Christ, father?”
“Never, Sib, never; but the time is going by, the train is signalled. My dearest, what is it?”
“Mayn’t I go back to town with you? I like the country, I like Gus and Freda and Mabel, but there is no place like your study in the evening, and there’s no place like my bedroom at night when you come into it. I’d like to go back with you, wouldn’t it be fun! Couldn’t you take me?”
“I could, of course,” said the man, and just for a moment he wavered. It would be nice to have her in the house, all by herself, for the next two or three days, but he put the thought from him as if it were a temptation.
“No, Sib,” he said, “you must go back to your mother; it would not be at all right to leave your mother alone.”
“Of course not,” she answered promptly, and she gave a sigh which was scarcely a sigh.
“It would have been nice all the same,” said Ogilvie. “Ah! there is my train; kiss me, darling.”
She flung her arms tightly round his neck.
“Sibyl, just promise before I leave you that you will be a good girl, that you will make goodness the first thing in life. If, for instance, we were never to meet again—of course we shall, thousands of times, but just suppose, for the sake of saying it, that we did not, I should like to know that my little girl put goodness first. There is nothing else worth the while in life. Cling on to it, Sibyl, cling tight hold to it. Never forget that I——”
“Yes, father, I will cling to it. Yes, father!”