‘Perhaps it is,’ said Christopher hurriedly, taking up his hat. ‘Let me now wish you good-bye; and, of course, you will always know where I am, and how to find me.’
It was a tender time. He inclined forward that Ethelberta might give him her hand, which she did; whereupon their eyes met. Mastered by an impelling instinct she had not reckoned with, Ethelberta presented her cheek. Christopher kissed it faintly. Tears were in Ethelberta’s eyes now, and she was heartfull of many emotions. Placing her arm round Picotee’s waist, who had never lifted her eyes from the carpet, she drew the slight girl forward, and whispered quickly to him—‘Kiss her, too. She is my sister, and I am yours.’
It seemed all right and natural to their respective moods and the tone of the moment that free old Wessex manners should prevail, and Christopher stooped and dropped upon Picotee’s cheek likewise such a farewell kiss as he had imprinted upon Ethelberta’s.
‘Care for us both equally!’ said Ethelberta.
‘I will,’ said Christopher, scarcely knowing what he said.
When he had reached the door of the room, he looked back and saw the two sisters standing as he had left them, and equally tearful. Ethelberta at once said, in a last futile struggle against letting him go altogether, and with thoughts of her sister’s heart:
‘I think that Picotee might correspond with Faith; don’t you, Mr. Julian?’
‘My sister would much like to do so,’ said he.
‘And you would like it too, would you not, Picotee?’
‘O yes,’ she replied. ‘And I can tell them all about you.’