He intimated a wish for her to leave him then, and so she bade him good-night, and left him alone with his thoughts, which were not of the most agreeable nature. How still it was in the next room!—so still, that he trembled as he opened the door and went in, where Alice had wept so bitterly. He did not weep; he never wept; but he was conscious of a feeling of oppression and pain as he glanced around the quiet, orderly room, at the chair by the window, the bed in the corner, and the crib standing near.
“What could have put that idea into her head?” he asked himself, as, with his hand upon the cradle, he made the motion which poor Laura kept up so constantly.
Then with a sigh he went back to his own room, and stood a long time before that picture of the graveyard, which hung upon the wall. There was a softness now in his eyes and manner,—a softness which increased when he turned to his chair by the writing-desk, and took from a drawer the faded flowers and the curl of hair which Alice had found.
“Poor Jessie! I wish I had never crossed her path,” he said, as he put the curl and flowers away, and thought again of Alice and the little dark-eyed girl who had designated her “Frank’s Alice Grey.”
“Frank’s, indeed!” he said; “I trust I have effectually stopped any foolishness of that kind.”
Frank Irving was evidently not a favorite with Mr. Grey, though not a word was ever said of him to Alice, who, as the days went by, began to be reconciled to her removal from school, and to interest herself in her preparations for the trip to Europe. They were to sail the last of August, and one morning, in October, Magdalen received a letter from Frank, saying that he had just heard, from one of Miss Dana’s pupils, that Alice Grey had gone to Italy.
CHAPTER XIII.
A RETROSPECT.
Six years have passed away and we lift the curtain of our story in Charlestown, and, after pausing there a moment, go back across the bridge which spans the interval between the present and the past. It was the day but one before the close of the term, and those who had learned to love each other with a schoolgirl’s warm, impetuous love, would soon part, some forever and some to meet again, but when, or where, none could tell.
“It may be for years, and it may be forever!”