He turned unceremoniously away from Miss Yorke's protestations, and went to the door, beckoning Edith to follow him. As he looked back, waiting for her, he saw that the whole family had gone over in a body to talk to his mother.
Edith clasped the hand he held out to her, and looked up into his face with large tears flashing in her eyes.
"I wouldn't leave you if they would give me all the world!" she exclaimed.
He smiled involuntarily, but would not take advantage of her affectionate impulse. He saw clearly that her true place was with her relatives. They could do for her at once what he could do only after years of weary labor. Perhaps they could do at once what he could never do. But it was hard to give her up. Down in the bottom of his heart was a thought which he had never fully acknowledged the presence of, but of which he was always conscious: he had meant to bring the child up to be his wife some day, if she should be willing; to load her with benefits; to be the one to whom she should owe everything. But with the pang it cost him to put this hope in peril came the glimpse of a possibility how far more triumphant! Following his own plan, he should be hedging her in; giving her up now would be making her free choice, if it should fall on him, an infinitely greater boon. Besides, and above all, it was right that she should go.
Dick leaned back against the wall of the building, and folded his arms while he talked to her. At first Edith broke into reproaches when she learned that he meant to give her up, but immediately an instinct of feminine pride and delicacy checked the words upon her lips. It was impossible for her to press her society on one who voluntarily relinquished it. She listened to her sentence in silence.
"So you see, Edith," he concluded, "we must make up our minds to part."
She perceived no such necessity, but did not tell him so. "Then I shall never see you any more!" she said in a whisper, without looking up.
Dick's eyes sparkled with resolution through the tears that filled them. "Yes, you will!" he exclaimed. "I mean to do the best I can for mother and myself, and you shall not be ashamed of us. And however high they may set you, Edith, I'll climb! I'll climb! I won't be so far off but I can reach you!"
The coach had taken its first load of passengers to the village, and now came down to bring those who were to take the steamer and carry the Yorkes back. It was time to go on board. Dick stepped to the door of the waiting-room. "Come, mother!" he said. "Edith and I will see you to your state-room, and then I will bring her back. She is to go with her uncle."
He was not surprised to see that his mother had been completely talked over by Edith's relations, and that, though tearful, no opposition was to be expected from her. They seemed to be the best of friends; and when the widow rose to take leave of them, Mr. Yorke himself escorted her to the boat. In fact, it was all very comfortably settled, as Miss Yorke observed to her mother when they had taken their seats in the coach.