“To-morrow, my darling, to-morrow,” the old lady said, with tears in her eyes.
Winifred shook her head. No one could deceive her any more. She seemed to have come to that farthest edge of life on which everything becomes plain. After a while she withdrew, leaving the others to their consultation; they had been excited by Edward’s coming, but they were cowed by his going away. It seemed to bring to all a strange realisation, such as people so often reach through the eyes of others, of the real state of their affairs.
CHAPTER XVI
ENOUGH had been done and said that night. They remained together for some time in the drawing-room, having the outside aspect of a family party, but separated, as indeed family parties often are. Winifred, very pale, with the feeling of exhaustion both bodily and mental, sat for a time in her chair, Miss Farrell close to her, holding her hand. They said nothing to each other, but from time to time the old lady would bend over her pupil with a kiss of consolation, or press between her own the thin hand she held. She said nothing, and Winifred, indeed, was incapable of intercourse more articulate. On the other side of the fireplace George and his wife sat together, whispering and consulting. She was very eager, he careworn and doubtful, as was his nature. Sometimes he would shake his head, saying, “No, Alice,” or “It is not possible.” Sometimes her eager whispering came to an articulate word. Their anxious discussion, the close union of two beings whose interests were one, the life and expectation and anxiety in their looks, made a curious contrast to the exhaustion of Winnie lying back in her chair, and the sullen loneliness of Tom, who sat in the centre in front of the fire, receiving its full blaze upon him in a sort of ostentatious resentment and sullenness, though his hand over his eyes concealed the thought in his face. The only sound was the whispering of Mrs. George, and the occasional low word with which her husband replied. Further, no communication passed between the different members of this strange party. They separated after a time with faint good-nights, Mrs. George eager, indeed, to maintain the forms of civility, but the brothers each in his way withdrawing with little show of friendship. After this, Winifred too went upstairs. Her heart was very full.
“Did you ever,” she said to her companion “feel a temptation to run away, to bear no more?”
“Yes, I have felt it; but no one can run away. Where could we go that our duty would not follow us? It is shorter to do it anyhow at first hand.”
“Is it so?” said Winifred, with a forlorn look from the window into the night where the stars were shining, and the late moon rising. “‘Oh that I had the wings of a dove!’—I don’t think I ever understood before what that meant.”
“And what does it mean, Winnie? The dove flies home, not into the wilds, which is what you are thinking of.”
“That is true,” said the girl, “and I have no home, except with you. I have still you”—
“He will come back to-morrow,” Miss Farrell said.