'I think you will be a true Englishman. Yet, if you live here permanently, you will have to be the other thing too. A man owes it to the country of his adoption; and I think your father has no thought of returning to England himself?'
'None at all, sir.'
'How will you go? You cannot take passage to England.'
'That can be managed easily enough. Probably I should take passage in a ship bound for Lisbon; from there I could make my way somehow to London.'
For, it may be mentioned, the time was the time of the last American struggle with England, early in the century; and the high seas were not safe and quiet as now.
The colonel sighed again once or twice, and repeated that gesture with his hand over his brow.
'I suppose there is no telling how long you will be gone, if you once go?'
'I cannot come home every vacation,' said Pitt lightly. 'But since my father and mother have made up their minds to that, I must make up mine.'
'So you will be gone years,' said the colonel thoughtfully. 'Years. I shall not be here when you return, William.'
'You are not going to change your habitation, sir?' said the young man, though he knew what the other meant well enough.