“You experience no regret, then, at leaving the city?”
George merely looked at me; but he could not have spoken more eloquently.
The train had just left Portsmouth, when the conductor entered the car holding aloft a yellow envelope. Every eye was instantly riveted upon it. Conversation ceased. For whom of the fifty or sixty occupants of the car had this flash overtaken the express train? In that moment the criminal realized the futility of flight, the merchant the uncertainty of his investments, the man of leisure all the ordinary contingencies of life. The conductor put an end to the suspense by demanding,
“Is Mr. George Brentwood in this car?”
In spite of an heroic effort at self-control, George’s hand trembled as he tore open the envelope; but as he read his face became radiant. Had he been alone I believe he would have kissed the paper.
“Your news is not bad?” I ventured to ask, seeing him relapse into a fit of musing, and noting the smile that came and went like a ripple on still water.
“Thank you, quite the contrary; but it is important that I should immediately return to Boston.”
“How unfortunate!”
George turned on me a fixed and questioning look, but made no reply.
“And the mountains?” I persisted.