Meg did not see Robert again before he left. Mrs. Malloy she saw only for a moment, in the presence of her aunt, when she came to tell them “Good-bye.” “We leave to-morrow,” she explained with an attempt at a smile; “Robert has only six weeks more of liberty.”
They looked into each other’s eyes, the two women who loved him. Soul recognized soul, and Meg, throwing her arms around his mother, whispered, “God give you strength to bear it.”
For reply, Mrs. Malloy clasped her close a moment and said so low that Mrs. Weston could not hear, though she strained her ears. “If I find I cannot bear it alone, and send for you, will you come?”
Meg could only nod. A moment more, and she was gone. Meg stood staring after her till her aunt’s rasping voice broke the spell: “Do you want the neighbors to say that you are dying of love for that young man? No? Well, then, don’t act so mawkish about his mother!”
Meg could stand no more, and ran up to her room to escape the persecution.
The days dragged on hopelessly and drearily. One day, about three weeks after Robert’s departure, Ada Walker came to see her. She looked very pretty in her mourning-clothes, and her face wore a pensive air which was becoming to her.
“I have come to say ‘Good-bye,’” was her greeting. “Good-bye!” asked Meg in astonishment.
“Yes, I am going to put Gertie in boarding-school, and then I am going East to study music.”
“And the home?”
“I have sold that,” was the reply.