She thought over it, and worried about it all the morning, and finally sent a brief telegram to Major Desmond at his club, asking him to call and see her that afternoon about tea-time if he had nothing more important to do. And the Major, thinking Letty must be ill or she never would have wired for him, took a hansom straight away, and arrived to luncheon instead of to tea.
“Oh, Dick!” said Miss Letty at once as she gave him her hand in greeting,—“I have such bad news about Boy! They have sent him away to school in France!”
The Major stared.
“France!” he echoed blankly.
“Yes—France! To a place called Noirville in Brittany. Poor child! Here is his mother’s letter.” And she gave him Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir’s communication.
He read it in visible impatience,—then he threw it down upon the table angrily.
“That woman is a fiend, Letty!” he said,—“A devil encased in fat! That’s what she is! If she had been thin, she would have been a Murderess—as it is, she’s a Muddler! A criminal Muddler!” He walked up and down the room wrathfully—then stopped in front of Miss Leslie, whose gentle face was pale, and her eyes were suspiciously moist.
“Now, Letty, listen to me! Be a man!—I mean, be a brave woman!—and look this thing in the face. You must say good-bye to Boy for ever!”
“Say good-bye to Boy for ever!” repeated Miss Leslie mechanically—“Must I?”
“Yes, you must!” said the Major with an attempt at sternness,—“Don’t you see? The child has gone—and he’ll never come back. A boy will come back, but not the boy you knew. The boy you knew is practically dead. Try to realize that, Letty! It’s very hard, I know—but it’s a fact. The poor little chap had enough against him in his home surroundings, God knows!—but a cheap foreign school is the last straw on the camel’s back. Whatever is good in his nature will go to waste,—whatever is bad will grow and flourish!”