"When I am gone!" The words had a sad murmur in them, like the fall of autumn leaves. They pierced the very heart of the girl who heard them.
"When you are gone?" she repeated. "What do you mean?"
"I am going away within the hour," he said. "The telegram I received calls me back to Baltimore by the first train," he added.
Involuntarily Ida drew closer to him, her face paling. Suddenly the light went out of the sun, the glory faded from the blue sky; the music of the birds was hushed, the bitterness of death seemed to have fallen over her heart.
"Going away?" She repeated the words over and over again, but she could not realize their meaning.
"I—I have been so happy, I forgot you would have to go away," she said, slowly.
"I am going down to Central America. I may die of fever and never come back," he answered, with passionate pain in his voice. "If I am spared to return, it may not be for years. I will have passed out of your thoughts by that time. You will have forgotten the pleasant hours we spent together, forgotten our rambles through the sunny hours. You will have grown into a woman of the world by that time. You have not begun life yet."
"I feel as though I had finished with it," she murmured.
She did not try to check the words that came throbbing to her lips.
"I wish you had not come into my life only to go out of it," she added, with passionate pain.