She told herself with a kind of passionate rage that the child had no right to ask her such a silly, obvious question, and yet she answered at once: "Of course I shall leave Beechfield."
"And you will never come back?"
"I shall never, never come back." And then she added, almost as if in spite of herself, and with a kind of strange, bitter truthfulness very foreign to her: "I don't like Beechfield—I don't agree that it's a pretty place—I think it's a hideous little village."
There was a pause. She was seeking for a phrase in which to say "Good-bye," not so much to Timmy as to all the others.
"Will you go away to-morrow?" he asked, this time boldly. And she answered, "Yes, to-morrow."
"Perhaps I'd better not tell any of them at Old Place?" It was as if he was speaking to himself.
She clutched at the words.
"I would far rather you did not tell them—I will write to them from London. Can I trust you not to tell them, Timmy?"
He looked at her oddly. "Jack and Rosamund will be sorry," he said slowly. And then he jerked his head—his usual way of signifying "Good-bye" when he did not care to shake hands.
Turning round he walked out of the room, and she heard the front door bang after him, as also, after a moment or two, the outside door set in the garden wall.