"No" said the Colonel, firmly, still avoiding the questioning eyes. "She didn't!"
"Of course she didn't," returned Allison, fully satisfied. "She couldn't—she's not that kind. What a brute I was even to think it! But why, Dad? Please tell me why!"
"Francesca asked me this afternoon if I would come to her and Rose, after the—afterwards, you know, and I promised."
"If you promised, I suppose that settles it," remarked Allison, gloomily, "but I wish you hadn't. I can understand that they would want you, too, for of course they'll be desperately lonely after Isabel goes away."
A certain peace crept into the old man's sore heart. Surely there was something to live for still.
"I hope you didn't tell Aunt Francesca you'd stay there always," Allison was saying, anxiously.
"No," answered the Colonel, with a smile; "there was no limit specified."
"Then we'll consider it only a visit and a short one at that—just until they get a little used to Isabel's being away. This is your rightful place, Dad, and Isabel and I both want you—don't ever forget that!"
When Allison had gone in search of his beloved, the Colonel sat on the veranda alone, accustomed, now, to evenings spent thus. His garden promised well, he thought, having produced two or three sickly roses in the very first season. The shrubs and trees that had survived ten years of neglect had been pruned and tied and would doubtless do well next year, if Isabel—
"I hope he'll never find out," the Colonel said to himself. Then he remembered that, for the first time in his life, he had lied to his son, and took occasion to observe the highly spectacular effect of an untruth from an habitually truthful person.