“We shall see, as to that.”
He bowed blandly, and turned upon his heel. He was going away? Well, he wouldn’t go far. Mell was so confident on this point, that she seated herself comfortably on the old stump again, and gave herself no uneasiness. She could not credit the evidences of her own senses when the moving figure became first a mere speck upon the horizon, and then a something gone, lost, swallowed up into the unseen.
“It passes belief,” said Mell; “surely he will come back, even yet!”
She waited one hour longer; she waited two—he evidently did not intend to come back.
She went home with a troubled heart.
The next morning, feeling somewhat more cheerful at what she considered the certain prospect of seeing him again, and to a somewhat better purpose, she called for Suke, in feverishly high spirits, and the two set off together on a spirited race down the hill.
One hour—two hours—three hours—and not a sign of her truant lover.
Mell burst into an agony of tears.
“I am no match for him,” she sobbed. “He is heartless and cynical, and imperious and selfish. He does not care in the very least bit for me and I”—springing to her feet, and dashing away her tears—“I do not know, at this moment, Jerome Devonhough, whether I most love or hate you!”