The latter was white as a sheet, and leaned against the mantel, for she knew now that Everard was really gone. Her paleness and agitation escaped the judge’s attention, for just then he picked up from the dressing-table the few lines that Everard had left for him, and which read as follows:
“Father:—You have always said your yea was yea, and your nay nay, and I know you meant it when you bade me leave your house and never come back again; so I have taken you at your word, and when you read this I shall be many miles away from Rothsay. After what you said to me I cannot even pass the night under this roof, and shall stay in the carriage-house until time to take the train. I am sorry for all that has passed, very sorry, and wish I could undo my part of it, but cannot, and so it is better for me to go. Good-by, father.
Your son, Everard.”
Notwithstanding the judge’s favorite assertion that his yea was yea, and his nay nay, it is very possible that if Everard had not taken him so promptly at his word,—if he had staid and gone to breakfast as usual and about his daily avocations, his father would have cooled down gradually, and come in time to look the matter over soberly and make the best of it. But Everard had gone, and the irascible old man broke forth afresh into invectives against him, denouncing him as a dog, to sleep in carriage-houses, and then run away as if there was anything to run from.
“I’ll never forgive him,” he said to Rossie, who had stood silently by, appalled at the storm of passion such as she had never seen before, until at last, forgetful of Everard’s charge not to interfere, she roused in his defense.
“Yes, you will forgive him,” she said. “You must. He is your son, and though I don’t know what he has done to make you so angry, I am sure it is not sufficient for you to treat him so, and you will send for him to come back. I know where he’s gone. He came and told me he was going, though I did not think it would be till this morning, when I hoped you might make it up.”
“And so he asked you to intercede for him as you have been in the habit of doing, and maybe told you the nice thing he had done?” the judge said, forgetting her assertion that she did not know.
“No, sir. Oh, no,” Rossie cried. “He did not ask me to intercede; he said, on the contrary, that I was on no account to mention him, and he did not tell me what it was about, except that it happened long ago; and he is so sorry and has tried to be good since. You know he was trying, Judge Forrest, and you will forgive him, won’t you?”
“By the lord Harry, no! and you would not ask it if you knew the disgrace he has brought upon me. I’ll fix him!” was the judge’s angry reply, as he broke away from her, and striding down the stairs took his hat from the hall-stand, and hurried to his office.
Great was the consternation among the servants in the Forrest household when it was known that Mr. Everard had left the house, and gone no one knew whither, and many were the whispered surmises as to the cause of his going.