“Did she go back yesterday, or to-day?” I inquired, carelessly. “She would have a cold journey.”
“Yesterday, if she’s gone at all, sir,” replied Harriet: “she’d hardly travel on Christmas-Day. If not, she’ll be here to-morrow.”
Roger groaned—and turned it off with a desperate cough, as though the raisins burnt his throat.
The next day came, Wednesday, again clear, cold, and bright. At breakfast George and Mary agreed to walk to Brighton. “You will come too,” said George, looking at us.
I said nothing. Roger shook his head. Of all places in the known world he’d not have ventured into Brighton, and run the risk of meeting her, perambulating its streets.
“No!—why, it will be a glorious walk,” remonstrated George.
“Don’t care for it this morning,” shortly answered Roger. “I’m sure Johnny doesn’t.”
Mr. Brandon came, if I may so put it, to the rescue. “I shall take a walk myself, and you two may go with me,” said he to us. “I should like to see what the country looks like yonder”—pointing to the unknown regions beyond the little church. And as this was just in the opposite direction to Brighton, Roger made no objection, and we set off soon after breakfast. The sky overhead was blue and clear, the snow on the ground dazzlingly white.
The regions beyond the church were the same as these: a long-stretched-out moor of flat dreariness. Mr. Brandon walked on. “We shall come to something or other in time,” said he. Walking with him meant walking when he was in the mood for it.