‘Going away?’
‘Yes. I’m going back with my mother. There is to be a sale and the house is to be let.’ John forced himself to say all this with an appearance of stolid calm.
Dick thrust his arm into John’s, and, half roughly, half tenderly, led him along.
‘Come and talk to Aunt Mary,’ he said. This was his own idea of consolation. He could not himself say anything that would be of any use to a mourner; but Aunt Mary, if anyone, could. Dick always said that he would back her against the world.
John suffered himself to be led along a little more quickly than the pace at which he had been going along the street. He was vaguely encouraged by Dick’s arm within his, and even by Percy’s little trim shadow walking along on the other side of him. The boys had naturally nothing to say. What could they have to say to a comrade in trouble? They could only stand by him; grip his hand till he cried out; hold his arm tight in theirs; get him a chair, as if he had been a girl; minister to his wants in any way he would let them: but otherwise, beyond ‘awfully sorry,’ what could they say?
‘We have made a run home to see Aunt Mary and Elly,’ said Percy, ‘but we can’t stay above an hour or two. It’s a capital offence, don’t you know, to be out of college without leave; but Dick had something he wanted to look to, and so had I. I wish we had come before yesterday.’
‘It didn’t matter,’ said John.
‘We tried hard,’ said Dick, ‘and then we thought at least you’d like to see us before——’
‘Are you going to town, Jack? Best thing for you. You will be sure to get something there. And nothing so easy as to meet one’s friends in town,’ said Percy, briskly. Dick was inclined to make allusions, to dwell upon the departure from Edgeley, and repeat that he was awfully sorry. But Percy was much more a man of the world. It was always better, he had heard, to speak in the most cheerful way to fellows who were in trouble, and direct their eyes beyond the trouble to the time when all should be cheerful again. ‘You must leave us your address,’ he said. ‘We constantly run up to town. We shall see more of you than if you were staying here.’
‘I don’t know if I shall have an address,’ said John. ‘I—don’t know where I’m going. I’m—all at sea. I know nothing. It’s like a mist—’