Naturally, he was at the present moment rather down-hearted. His mother, having learned his secret, had refused him sympathy or aid. Too well he knew she was to be swayed neither by entreaty nor argument. He was now riding over to Clifton to reiterate his love to Millicent, and to consult as to future steps. As he passed the carriage, he wondered what had brought his mother in that direction. She had not mentioned her intention of going to the town, nor had she asked for his escort as usual. Could it be possible that she had driven over to visit Millicent? If so, he knew it boded ill; so, pricking on as fast as he could, he reached Clifton just as the girl had grown more calm and had washed away the traces of her recent tears.
Frank was terribly upset by her recital of the events of the morning. Although she did not repeat the whole conversation, he knew his mother well enough to be able to supply what Millicent passed lightly over. The proposed separation was a thunderstroke to him. In vain he entreated the girl to reconsider her determination. The promise was made, and her pride alone would insure her keeping it. Of course Frank vowed, after the usual manner of lovers, that love would grow stronger in absence; and as he thoroughly believed what he vowed, his vows were very consoling to the girl. He declared he also would go to Australia; marry Millicent, and take to sheep-farming, leaving the paternal acres to shift for themselves. All this and many other wild things the young fellow said; but the end was a sorrowful acquiescence in the separation, tempered by the firm resolve of claiming her in four years’ time in spite of any home opposition. Having settled this, the heir of the Abbots rode home in a state of open rebellion against his parents.
This they were quite prepared for, and had, like sensible people, made up their minds to endure his onslaught passively. His mother made no reply to his reproaches; his father took no notice of his implied threats; but both longed for the time to come when Miss Keene would sail to distant shores and the work of supplanting her might begin.
About one thing Frank was firm, and Millicent, perhaps, did not try to dissuade him from it. Until they were bound to part, he would see her every day. Mr and Mrs Abbot knew why his horse was ordered every morning, and whence that horse bore him at eve; but they said nothing.
The fatal day came soon enough. Frank went down to Plymouth to see the very last of his love; and the mighty steamship Chimborazo bore away across the deep seas one of the sweetest and truest girls that ever won a man’s heart. A week after she sailed, Frank Abbot started on his continental tour.
‘I don’t care much about it,’ he said to himself, dolefully enough; ‘but it may help to make some of the time pass quicker. Four years, my darling! How long it seems!’
‘He will see the world,’ said Mrs Abbot, ‘and learn that a pretty face is not everything.’
‘He will fall in and out of love with a dozen girls before he returns,’ said Mr Abbot cynically.
It has been before stated that for many years there had been little change in either the possessions or the position of the Abbots of Chewton-Abbot; but, like other people, they had occasional windfalls. Some years after Mr Abbot succeeded to the estate, a new branch of a large railway passed through an outlying part of his land, and he who made it a boast of never selling or mortgaging a single acre, was compelled, by the demands of public convenience and commerce, to part with what the railway wanted. Of course he obtained a good round sum as compensation. This lay for a long time at his banker’s, waiting for any contiguous land which might come into the market. After a while, as no fields which he wished to add to his own were open to buyers, at his wife’s suggestion he sought for another and more profitable investment, and in an evil hour became the proprietor of fifty shares in a bank, whose failure has now become historical. He bought these shares at a premium; whilst he held them, they went to a much higher premium, but no doubt the same tenacity which led him to cling to his acres made him keep to the same investment. The high rate of interest also was very useful, and kept another horse or two in the stables.
We can all remember the astonishment we felt that black day when the news of the stoppage of that particular bank was flashed from end to end of the kingdom, and how, afterwards, the exposure of the reckless conduct of its directors, and of the rotten state in which the concern had been for years, sent a cold shudder down the back of every holder of bank stock.