“Your father surely would never go away at his time of life—and Rose spoke of the Colonies. He’d never go right away and start afresh like that.”
“Father’s heard of a very good billet near Montreal. We haven’t settled anything yet, but we both feel we’d like a change.”
“Why?”
“Well, why shouldn’t we? We’ve been here more than twenty years, and as for Father being old, he’s not too old to want to see a bit more of the world.”
Peter said nothing. He was taking off the wheel. When he had laid it against the bank he turned once more to Stella.
“It’s queer how I always manage to hear gossip about you. But it seems that this time I’m right, while last time I was wrong.”
“Everyone gets talked about in a little place like this.”
She tried to speak lightly, but she was distressed by the way he looked at her. Those pale blue eyes ... Alard eyes, Saxon eyes ... the eyes of the Old People looking at her out of the Old Country, and saying “Don’t go away....”
The next minute his lips repeated what his eyes had said:
“Don’t go away.”