"Well, well," pursued Ted, still detaining him, "and so you're going to leave little old Shadyville for good! And after spending all your days here, too—after making so many friends. I believe you'll miss us, Burnett!"
"I'm sure I shall," agreed Peter, with patient courtesy.
"Then why go? It may be a good change for you in ways, but I'm convinced there's more to be said against it than for it. For the life of me, I can't see why you're doing it."
"No," said Peter, a little drily, "you wouldn't see, Kent. But I'm sure it's the only thing to do. Tell Sheila I think so, please, and that I send her my good-byes."
"You aren't going to tell her good-bye yourself?"
"I'm afraid I can't." And as Peter spoke, he was acutely conscious of all that Ted did not see, of all that he would never understand. "I'm afraid I can't—I start early in the morning."
"All right! You know what's best for yourself, no doubt. Sorry you can't say good-bye to Sheila, though—she cares a lot for you, as much as if you were one of the family. I'll give her your message, but she'll be disappointed that you didn't deliver it yourself. Good luck to you, old man, and don't forget us!" And shaking hands again, Ted went cheerfully on his homeward way, serenely unaware of the sorrow—and of the irony!—that had confronted him from Peter's quiet eyes.
Up in his little room, Peter began to carry out his sudden plan for leaving Shadyville. It was true that he had had an offer, more than once, from Brentwood. Brentwood had been a chum of his at college, a friend who had never ceased to remember and appreciate him. The offer was still open, and it solved Peter's problem. He had told Sheila that he would marry Charlotte or do something else that would answer as well. He found that something else in going away.
He had not many possessions; shabby clothes—with an air to them; shabby books—that shone with their inner grace. The books took longest, and when he had finished packing them, it was dawn. He went to his window and watched the slow coming of the light, and in that silent, gray hour, he felt himself more alone than he had ever been. Everything seemed to have been stripped from him; this town where he had been born, and where generations of his family had been born before him; his friends; the little room, so dismantled now, that for years had been his home-place; all these—and his hope of happy love. He remembered how, in his early, romantic boyhood, he had hoped for that—for happy love; and now that hope was gone and everything was gone with it. Everything was gone because of Sheila; he had given up everything that she might be safe, that she might have peace—the peace, at least, of being unafraid. He thought of her now with a calm tenderness—as if, having given so much for her peace, he had somehow gained peace for himself, too. And then he thought of Charlotte, and it was for Charlotte, not for Sheila, that tears—a man's slow, difficult tears—forced themselves into his eyes.
But Charlotte was strong. It was her strength that had roused strength in him; strength to leave the garden, to escape the insinuating, ensnaring sweetness of the night and go forth into the daylight world of men.