The last person to whom Jack said farewell was his sister. She had stolen away to her own room, and there he found her weeping.
"Little Dot," he said in a choking voice, opening his arms to her as he paused just across the threshold.
She looked up, and with a low cry—half of pain, half joy—fled to him; and with this the shadow, almost estrangement, that had come between them was swept away forever.
He held her tight against his breast, and let her weep silently for a time, before he said very gently, "Dot, my little girl, I must speak to you on a certain matter before I go away."
She raised her head and kissed him; and this he took as permission to tell her what was upon his mind.
"Dot, I cannot go from you without having everything between us the same as has been all our lives, until these past few sad months."
At this she clung all the closer to him.
"You were badly treated, little one," he continued, "shamefully treated; and it was a great grief to me that you did not come and trust your brother to the end of telling him the whole matter at the very first. But 't is all past now, and words are of no worth. Only this I must know from your own lips,—if you love this man who has forced himself to be your husband, and if you love him sufficiently to leave us all, should he so bid you?"
"That he will never do," Dorothy answered, her voice full of sad conviction. "He has gone, thinking I hate him."
"And why did you send him away with such a notion as that?"