“If I had heard that he was living on the other side of the world, I might have taken comfort from it. But that he should have been here, and never came home—there is little comfort in that.”
“But he is living and he’ll come home to you yet. Do you think his mother’s son will be left to go astray beyond homecoming? He’ll come home again.”
“Many a son of a good mother has gone down to death—And that he should have come so near her grave, without coming nearer! I would almost sooner know him to be dead than to know that of him. And when I mind—”
That was the last word spoken. Mr Dawson rose and went out into the faint light of the summer night, and though his sister sat long waiting for him after the girls had come in and had gone to bed, she saw no more of him that night.
Chapter Five.
A New Acquaintance.
Mr Dawson was just as usual the next morning. He was never so silent, nor in such haste to get through breakfast and away to the town when his sister was in the house, for he took pleasure in her company, and never failed in the most respectful courtesy toward her when she was under his roof—or indeed elsewhere. She saw traces of last night’s trouble in his face, but it was not so evident as to be noticed by his daughters.
Indeed he seemed to them to be more interested than usual in the amusing discussion into which they fell concerning their yesterday’s pleasure. They had been at a garden party given by Mrs Petrie, the wife of their father’s partner in the bank, and had enjoyed it, and May especially had much to say about it.