and every burden light, or the elasticity of youth made continued pain seem impossible, we do not pretend to say. Human motives are not always easy to be read by human eyes.
Everybody tried to act as though nothing were the matter, and there was enough for all to do. Many things had to be planned and arranged in preparation for their leaving Seaton, and Edith had her own business to attend to. There were the Pattens needing double care since they were so soon to lose her; and the Catholic school to visit, that being permitted now; and a great deal of shopping to be done for her little flock of pensioners.
Within a fortnight came a letter from Carl to his mother, taken up chiefly with business details. But he wrote: “I called yesterday on Mrs. Williams to ask for her son. He was not at home, and I have not seen him yet. He has given up his ship, for this voyage, to Captain Cary.”
Carl could have added, but did not, that the call had not been a pleasant one. Mrs. Williams had just seen Captain Cary, and gleaned from him all that he had thought best to tell, which was, merely, that there seemed to be a slight misunderstanding between Dick and Edith. Her suspicions pointed at once to Carl, and she had not scrupled to express them to him when he came to her house.
“I am sorry not to see Mr. Rowan,” he had said, when he got a chance, ignoring her accusations and reproaches; and, with that, had taken a ceremonious leave.
“A pretty mother-in-law for Edith!” was his conclusion.
A few days after came a letter from Mrs. Williams to Edith. It was what might have been expected from
her. Dick had not been to see his mother; was stopping with a priest, and had refused to see her. What had Edith and those proud Yorkes done to her son, that he gave up everything and everybody, and went to hide himself in a Catholic priest’s house, instead of coming to his own home?
Poor Dick! could he have foreseen that such a letter would be written, he would have sacrificed himself a good deal in order to prevent it.
Edith dropped the letter at her feet after reading it, and said, not for the first time since Carl went away, “Oh! that Father Rasle would come!”