CHAPTER II.—THE PARTING.
It was settled that Wilfred should go to Paris.
Mr Merton was a banker in a good position in London, and he had naturally wished Wilfred, who was his only child, to enter into his office and succeed him in his business. But unfortunately for his schemes, the boy had at an early age developed a strong taste for drawing, and this taste, which had been discouraged rather than fostered, had grown with his growth, until his father had been obliged to admit to himself that it was useless to try to coerce him, and that the lad must be allowed to take his own way. Giving in to an unavoidable necessity, and giving in to it gracefully, are, however, two very different things, and Mr Merton chose the former course. He allowed his son to become an artist, because he saw very clearly that he could do nothing else, but beyond that he did scarcely anything for him; with but scanty instruction, he was, as Mabel had said, very nearly self-taught.
Had Mrs Merton lived to see her boy grow up, things would have been no doubt on a very different footing between father and son; her influence would have been used to soften the disagreement between them; and a woman's influence is rarely ineffectual. But unhappily for them both, she had died when Wilfred was about ten years old; and he and his father were left to rub the angles of their natures against one another, without any one to round the angularity off.
And so it came to pass that when Mr Merton offered to send Wilfred to Paris, although there were many reasons for which the young man would have preferred remaining at home, he thought it would not do to refuse his father's offer, and so accepted it, and prepared for leaving home.
From the moment that this idea had been first communicated to Mabel, she had had a great and unaccountably strong dislike to it; and now when it was resolved upon, and the time of Wilfred's going was drawing near, an excitable restless feeling came over her, that made her depressed and miserable. This depression so haunted her, that she could not help looking upon it as an omen and a warning.
She tried hard to repress this boding feeling, but in vain; and tried also, and with more success, to keep it from Wilfred's sight; but at last when the day of his departure had arrived, and he had come to say good-bye to her, she could restrain herself no longer, and to his surprise and dismay beseeched him to change his mind and remain at home!
'Why, Mabel, my darling,' he answered, clasping his hands round her waist as he spoke, and looking down fondly at her, 'what do you mean? You have never said a word against my going until now.'
'No; I have been trying not to think of it. But O Wilfred! I have such a strong feeling in my heart that some harm will come of your going; I have had it ever since you first spoke of it. Do stay.'
'You can't be well, my pet; it isn't like you to have such fancies.'