"Oh, granny, I don't want to go away," she cried. "I don't want to go. I can't bear leaving you, and—and everything. I want to stay with you always."
Oddly enough, at the sight of Audrey's sorrow, some of the sadness which had weighed on her granny's heart for days was lifted from it, and, though it was their last day, she felt happier. "Then the child does care, she does feel leaving me, she has some deep affections! I knew she had," thought the lonely old grandmother with a sense of triumph over the doubts which had troubled her. She put out her hand and patted Audrey's. "I am so—" she almost, in her relief, said "I am so glad!" "I would like you to stay, dear, but I feel it is your duty to go, and mine to spare you."
"May I come back, granny, when the year is up?" pleaded Audrey, keeping back her tears by remembering that her eyes would be red for her journey. "It would be lovely to think that this day twelve-months I shall be seeing it all again."
"If your father and mother can spare you, and you still wish to come, I shall be very glad to have you, and your room will be waiting for you."
That was comforting, but the thought of leaving that pretty, beloved room for a whole year set the tears flowing again. "Oh, I mustn't cry, I mustn't," she said to herself fiercely. "Everybody at the station will see, and everyone in the train, too." But, as her eyes wandered from one to another of the familiar things, the pretty cups and saucers, the silver coffeepot, the funny old tall cosy that granny used, and all the rest of them, the sense of loss and parting again became too much for her, and this time the tears flowed without thought of appearances.
"I think I love things more than people," she said to herself, as she stood in her bedroom putting on her hat and coat; and she stooped and kissed the two old foreign shells on the mantelpiece with a sudden feeling of sympathy. They must have travelled so far from their home, and would never, never go back. She leaned out of the window for the last time, and took a long look at the well-filled garden, and at the flat country beyond, and the river shining in the sunlight.
The sight of the river and the hills brought her some comfort. They had been there so long, and would be there unchanged whenever she came back. "And I am coming! I am coming! I will come!" she cried passionately.
A knock sounded at her door. "Mistress wants to know if you are ready, miss," said Phipps, granny's maid, who had been with her for five-and-twenty years. "The sandwiches and milk are ready for you in the dining-room, Miss Audrey. The train leaves in half an hour."
"I will be down in a minute," said Audrey, in a choked voice. She hoped desperately that Phipps would go away and leave her alone to say her last good-bye to her room. But Phipps showed no such intention.
"I'll fasten up the bag, and bring it down, miss," and she laid hands on the straps and began to secure them in a manner which gave Audrey no hope. "I'm sorry to be doing up luggage for you to go away altogether, Miss Audrey. We shall all miss you," she said kindly. "The house will seem dreadfully dull and empty. I think you had better come down and have something to eat, or the mistress will be worrying. She likes to be at the station in good time."