“It seems so,” he said, clasping her hands. “Our last trial, Madeline.”
“Oh, how can anybody tell if it will be our last trial? I thought so when you went to America, though that was no test or task, but only pleasure.”
“If we parted bravely for nothing at all then,” he said,—“for there was no motive—and I can’t think why I went and left you, not being forced to do it,—we must try and part all the more bravely for a real motive now.”
“Oh, I shall not break down; you need not fear for me. But it is hard, Gervase.”
“The only comfort is, that when they have exacted this, there is nothing more for them to do.”
“Oh, they’ll find something!” Madeline cried: and then her heart smote her for her father, who was always so kind. “Papa will always stand our friend,” she said.
It was his turn now to shake his head. He did not think her father had been kind, any more than his own. They had laid their heads together; they had not cared for crushing the hearts of their children. Granting, as Gervase did, that it is only young hearts that can feel, the ingenuity of the fathers in tearing him from Madeline, in separating the two who ought to have been made one, had something in it wellnigh diabolical. He forgot that they had been sundered before at their own will and for pleasure merely, without any idea of duty. His American expedition had not pretended to any elevated motive. He had gone because he wanted to go, and Madeline had quietly encouraged him so to do; but there had been no suggestion of diabolical ingenuity or of tragical feeling. Now it was all different. The two fathers had laid their heads together. They had taken advantage of the younger pair.
“Is it to be soon?” asked Madeline.
“The sooner the better,” he replied. “The sooner I am gone, the sooner I shall be back again. Three months is not so very long after all. I shall be back soon after the New Year.”
“Another Christmas without you,” she said, a tear dropping from her eyelashes. Last Christmas it was she who had been away on the Riviera enjoying a relief from the wintry greyness of London. They had not thought of upbraiding each other with these absences. But everything was different now.