“But why go to-morrow? There is no such haste necessary,” Mr. Beresford said, when he heard the contents of the letter, and Phil replied:
“I must go before I see her again; the sight of her might unman me and make me give it up.”
So the letter was sent, and when Phil went home to dinner at night he startled his family by telling them that he was going to India for a year, and possibly longer.
“To India!” both mother and sisters exclaimed, and then Phil explained it to them.
The former opposed the plan with all her strength, for life without Phil would be nothing to the mother who loved him so much. Mr. Rossiter, on the contrary, approved it. It was no way for a young man to hang on to his mother’s apron strings all his days, he said; Phil ought to do something for himself. This was only a repetition of the old story of idleness and ease, and confirmed Phil in his purpose. He would make something of himself—would show that he was capable of higher occupation than devising trimming for dresses and running a sewing-machine. He was very sore on the subject of the sewing-machine, and very reticent all through the dinner, and when it was over excused himself to his sisters, saying he had letters to write and some few matters which must be attended to. It was very sudden to them all—his going away—but, as he said, he was his own master and must act for himself, and when his mother tried to persuade him to give it up, he answered:
“No, I have staid with you too long. You are the best and dearest mother in the world, but you have done wrong not to send me away before this, and make me stay away, too. I should have been more of a man among men. I see it now, and must take the first chance offered me. A year is not very long, and I shall write to you every week.”
So Mrs. Rossiter gave it up, and busied herself with various preparations for his comfort, and said she should go to New York to see him off, and tried to seem cheerful and happy, and tried, with his sisters, to fathom the cloud which overshadowed his face, and made him so unlike himself. What had happened to him, and was Reinette in any way connected with it? They thought so, and when in the morning he said he was going to bid his grandmother and Anna good-by, and they asked if he were not going to see Reinette, too, and he answered: “I saw her yesterday, but give her this letter when I am gone,” they were sure of it, and for the first time since they had known her, they felt a little vexed with the girl, who even then was watching from her window for the rider coming over the river, across the causeway, and up the long hill as he would not come again, for when, later in the day, the express train for New York stopped at West Merrivale, it carried him along toward the new life which was to have an aim and occupation.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HOW QUEENIE BORE THE NEWS.
She saw the long train as it came across the plains from East Merrivale—saw it shoot under the bridge, past the station, and glide swiftly on by the river-side until it was lost to view in the deep cut by the old gold-mine, and remembered that afterward she heard the whistle as the train stopped at West Merrivale a few minutes and then went speeding on to the West But she never dreamed that it carried with it a young man whose face was pale as ashes as he sat with folded arms, and hat pulled over his eyes, seeing nothing of what was passing around him, and thinking only of her, listening even then for the sound of his horse’s feet coming up the hill. For Queenie felt sure he would come back to her, and that in some way they would make it up, and resume their old, delightful relations with each other. And she watched for him all day long, and was beginning to get restless and impatient, when, about sunset, the Rossiter carriage came slowly up the hill and into the yard.