“To-night. Now. I must say good-by.”
“To-night? Now?” Her voice sank almost to a whisper. Her lips were white and quivering. “But do they know at the house? Surely this is sudden.”
“Oh, no, not so sudden. I have thought of it for some time; indeed, I have made my plans.”
“Oh—for some time? You have made your plans? But you never hinted such a thing to—to any of us.”
“Oh, well, I don't tell my plans to all the world,” said the doctor with a careless laugh.
The girl shrank from him as if he had cut her with his riding whip. But, swiftly recovering herself, she cried with gay reproach:
“Why, Mr. Smith, we are losing all our friends at once. It is cruel of you and Dr. Martin to desert us at the same time. Mr. Smith, you know,” she continued, turning to the doctor with an air of exaggerated vivacity, “leaves for the East to-night too.”
“Smith—leaving?” The doctor gazed stupidly at that person.
“Yes, you know he has come into a big fortune and is going to be—”
“A fortune?”