"It is of no use," he said to her. "I have tried meeting and mingling with my friends, and I feel as if they saw on my face what is always in my mind, and if I stay in Boston I shall some day scream out to the public that my father was a murderer. I could not help it, and I can understand now how Lucy was wrought upon to do what she did in church when they thought her crazy. I shall be crazy, too, if I stay here, and I am going away. Geraldine likes Europe, and so do I; and as I can leave my business as well as not, I shall shut up my house, and go abroad until I feel that I can look my fellowmen in the face."
"And Grey?" Hannah asked, sorrowfully, knowing how dreary her life would be with him so far away.
"I shall take him with me," her brother replied, "I shall put him in school somewhere in England or Germany, and send him eventually to Oxford. But you will stay here, won't you? I'd rather you would."
"Yes," she answered, still more sadly, for she fully understood the intense selfishness of the man, who went on:
"I shall be happier, knowing you are here, for I cannot have the house sold, or rented, or even left alone, lest by some chance the secret of our lives should be discovered. I am almost as morbid on the subject as father was: but with you here, I shall feel safe. You can have any one live with you whom you choose, and I will supply you with plenty of money. So I do not see why you should not in time be quite content."
"Yes, brother," Hannah said, very low; "but shall I not see Grey for years?"
"Perhaps not; I don't know," was her brother's reply, as he arose to go, without a single throb of pity for the woman who was to be left alone in the home so hateful to him.
But Grey, when he heard of the plan, which did not surprise him, comforted her with the assurance that he should spend all his long vacations with her, as he did not mind crossing the ocean at all.
"I may be with you oftener than if I were in America, and then some time I'll go to Carnarvon and begin the search. So, don't feel so badly," he said to her as he saw the great tears roll down her cheeks, and guessed in part her sorrow.
And so the necessary arrangements were made as rapidly as possible, and one Saturday about the middle of March, Hannah stood on the wharf in New York with a feeling like death in her heart, and saw Grey sail away and leave her there alone.