A great longing was on her to see him again; but as she hesitated the wheels of the dog-cart sounded on the gravel, and she knew that she was too late. With a sudden impulse she leant out of the window. Michael was looking back at the house; he saw her, and raised his hat. She had just time to wave her hand as Dr. Ross drove rapidly through the gate.
When her mother came to find her she was still standing there; she looked very pale, and the pained, wistful look was still in her eyes.
'Mother,' she said, 'Cyril has left me, and now Michael has gone, too; and the world seems a different place to me.'
'Michael will come back, my darling,' replied Mrs. Ross, vaguely troubled by the look on the girl's face. 'Your father says he has long wanted a thorough change, and this trip will do him so much good.'
'Yes, he will come back; but when and how? And he will not come back for a long time;' and then she broke down, and hid her face in her mother's shoulder. 'If I were only like you, mother! if my life lay behind me, and had not to be lived out day by day and year by year! for I seem so tired of everything.'
Mrs. Ross could make nothing of her girl; but she gave her just what she required that moment, a little soothing and extra petting.
'You have gone through so much, and you have borne it all so quietly, and now Nature is having her revenge; you will be better presently, my darling.'
And she was right: Audrey's strong will and sense of duty soon overcame the hysterical emotion.
'I think I am tired,' she acknowledged; and to her mother's relief she consented to lie still and do nothing. 'I will make up for this idle day to-morrow,' she said with a faint smile, as she closed her eyes. 'Now go downstairs, mother dear, and don't trouble about me any more, unless you want to make me ashamed of myself for having been such a baby.'
'She is just worn out with keeping everything to herself, and trying to spare us pain,' Mrs. Ross said to her husband, as she recounted this little scene to him. 'I never knew Audrey hysterical before; I was obliged to give her some sal volatile. I think she is asleep now.'