“John!” I urged.
“Parson,” my uncle roared, “ye’ll lose your passage!”
Cather blew out the light.
“John,” I pleaded, “you’ll not go without saying good-bye?”
He stopped on the threshold; but I did not hear him turn. I called him again; he wheeled, came stumbling quickly to my bed, caught my hand.
“Forgive me, Dannie!” he groaned. “My heart is broken!”
He ran away: I never saw him again....
And now, indeed, was the world gone all awry! What had in the morning of that day been a prospect of joy was vanished in a drear mist of broken hopes. Here was John Cather departed in sore agony, for which was no cure that ever I heard of or could conceive. Here was John Cather gone with the wreck of a soul. A cynical, purposeless, brooding life he must live to his last day: there was no healing in all the world for his despair. Here with us––to whom, in the 304 years of our intercourse, he gave nothing but gladness––his ruin had been wrought. ’Twas not by wish of us; but there was small comfort in the reflection, since John Cather must suffer the same. Here was John Cather gone; and here, presently, was my uncle, pacing the floor below. Up and down, up and down: I thought the pat of his wooden leg would go on forever––would forever, by night and day, express the restlessness of thirst. And here was Judy, abroad, in trouble I could not now divine––’twas a thing most strange and disturbing that she should stand in distress before me. I had accounted for it, but could not now explain––not with John Cather gone. I was mystified, not agitated by alarms. I would meet the maid on the Whisper Cove road in the morning, thinks I, and resolve the puzzle. I would discover more than that. I would discover whether or not I had blundered. But this new hope, springing confidently though it did, could not thrive in the wretchedness of John Cather’s departure. I was not happy.
My uncle roughly awoke me at dawn.