After a while, Cherry-pie sat down on the stairs and cried softly. Robert Ferguson walked about; now out to the front door, with a feint of looking at the thermometer in the vestibule; now the length of the hall, into which the fog had crept until the gas burned in a hazy ring; now into the parlor—from which he instantly fled as if a serpent had stung him: her little basket of embroidery, overflowing with its pretty foolishness, stood on the table.
When David Richie opened the library door and came into the hall he was outwardly far steadier than they. "I think I'll go to the depot now, sir. No, thank you, Miss White; I'll get something to eat there."
"Oh, but my dear boy," she said, trying to swallow her tears, "now do—now don't—I can have your breakfast ready immejetly, and—"
"Let him alone," Mr. Ferguson said; "he'll eat when he feels like it.
David, must you go back this morning? I wish you'd stay."
"I have to go back, thank you, sir."
"You may find a letter from her at home; she didn't know you were to be here to-day."
"I may," David said; and some dull note in his voice told Robert
Ferguson that the young man's youth was over.
"My boy," he said, "forget her! You are well rid of—" he stopped short, with an apprehensive glance; but David made no protest; apparently he was not listening.
"I shall take the express," he said; "I must see my mother, before I go to the hospital to-night. She must be told. She will be—sorry."
"Your mother!" said Robert Ferguson. "Well, David, thank God you have loved one woman who is good!"