"Most of it. I am going back to Toronto for a week or two before 'Varsity opens. My friend Miss de Vere is staying with some friends there. She is ill and—"
"Do you still call her your friend?" he interrupted, with a sarcastic smile.
"Why, yes!" she answered wonderingly, never dreaming that he had witnessed that same scene in the Mayfair home.
"You are faithful, Beth," he said, looking graver. Then he talked steadily of things in which neither of them had any interest. How cold and unnatural it all was! Beth longed to give way to tears. In a few minutes he rose to go. He was going! Arthur was going! She dared not look into his face as he touched her hand coldly.
"Good-bye, Miss Woodburn. I wish you every success next winter."
She went back to the parlor and watched him—under the apple trees, white with blossom, through the gate, past the old church, around the corner—he was gone! The clock ticked away in the long, silent parlor; the sunshine slept on the grass outside; the butterflies were flitting from flower to flower, and laughing voices passed in the street, but her heart was strangely still. A numb, voiceless pain! What did it mean? Had Arthur changed? Once he had loved her. "God have pity!" her white lips murmured. And yet that look, that touch last night—what did it mean? What folly after all! A touch, a smile, and she had woven her fond hopes together. Foolish woman-heart, building her palace on the sands for next day's tide to sweep away! Yet how happy she had been last night! A thrill, a throb, a dream of bliss; crushed now, all but the memory! The years might bury it all in silence, but she could never, never forget. She had laid her plans for life, sweet, unselfish plans for uplifting human lives. Strange lands, strange scenes, strange faces would surround her. She would toil and smile on others, "but oh, Arthur, Arthur—"
All through the long hours of that night she lay watching; she could not sleep. Arthur was still near, the same hills surrounding them both. The stars were shining and the hoarse whistle of the steamers rent the night. Perhaps they would never be so near again. Would they ever meet, she wondered. Perhaps not! Another year, and he would be gone far across the seas, and then, "Good-bye, Arthur! Good-bye! God be with you!"
CHAPTER XII.
FAREWELL.