She sighed.
'Where is Janet?' he asked.
'At Andermatt—on the St. Gothard. The air is bracing there.'
'Very well. You will want money. You shall have it.'
'And how long may I stay?'
'That entirely remains with yourself. As far as I am concerned, I am indifferent.'
So Salome was to go. She was now filled with a feverish impatience to be off—not that she cared for herself, that the change might do her good—but because the leaving home would be to her agony, and she was desirous to have the pang over.
She felt that she could not endure to live as she had of late, under the same roof with her husband and yet separated from him, loving him with her faithful, sincere heart, and meeting with rebuff only; guiltless, yet regarded as guilty, her self-justification disregarded, her word treated as unworthy of credence. No—she could not endure the daily mortification, and she knew that it would be well for her to leave; but for all that she knew that the leaving home would be to her the acutest torture she could suffer. She must leave her dear child, uncertain when she would see it again. She did not hide from herself that if she left, she left not to return till some change had taken place in Philip's feelings towards her. She could not return to undergo the same freezing process. But she raised no hopes on what she knew of Philip's character. As far as she was acquainted with it—it was unbending. Salome had that simple faith which leads one to take a step that seems plain, without too close a questioning as to ultimate consequences. She had been told by the doctor whom she trusted that she must go away from Mergatroyd, and immediately came the call of her sister. To her mind, this was a divine indication as to the course she must take, and she prepared accordingly to take it.
At the best of times it is not without misgiving and heartache that we leave home, if only for a holiday, and only for a few weeks; we discover fresh beauties in home, new attractions, things that require our presence, and obstruct our departing steps. A certain vague fear always rises up, lest we should never return, at least, that when we return something should be changed that we value, something going wrong that we have left right, some one face be missing that we hold to with infinite love. It is a qualm bred of the knowledge of the uncertainty of all things in this most shifting world, a qualm that always makes itself felt on the eve of departure. With Salome this was more than a qualm; she was going, she knew not to what; she was going, she knew not for how long; and the future drew a gray impenetrable veil before her eyes—she could not tell, should she return, to what that return would be. She did not reckon about her child. She could not, she would not be separated from it—but whether Philip would let the child go to her, or insist on her return to the child, that she did not ask. The future must decide. Whatever she saw to be her duty, that she would do. That was Salome's motive principle. She would do her duty anywhere, at any sacrifice: when she saw what her duty was.
A cab was procured from the nearest town, four miles distant, to take Salome to the station.