“Not in the least, I am fully alive to your anxiety; your patience has been greater than I expected,” he assured her.
“I fear I am too willing to let you go; but I shall never forget, Mr. Benson—never, as long as I live!” and she raised her beautiful face to his with a look of gratitude that went beyond mere words.
“I am ashamed,” he burst out generously, “to have let anything detain me.”
“It has been my terrible anxiety that has made the days so slow in passing. Won't you come and see Jane and the baby?—why, you have never seen the baby, Mr. Benson!” with a poor attempt at gaiety.
But a pall was upon the three. Jane greeted him with a pathetic gentleness of manner that was meant to take the place of the words she dared not speak. He turned from her only to meet Virginia's laboured cheerfulness; and he was troubled and ill at ease; yet he made a tolerable success of maintaining that air of judicial composure in which he usually took refuge when he came near to suffering. He even made certain tentative and austere attempts at playfulness with the baby; and then he drifted into small talk which he felt to be as leaden as it was small. When at last he rose to take his leave he said to Mrs. Walsh:
“I hope I shall come back with good news for you,” and he held out his hand in farewell. His words brought them sharply back to the actualities. Jane looked up quickly from the sewing which her small hands now clutched despairingly.
“Good-bye!” and then a low cry broke from her. “You will bring them back?” and her tears began to fall.
“I shall try,” he said gravely. “But we must all be hopeful.” Then he looked into Virginia's serious eyes, and caught the tremor of her lips; and was silent. What right had he to speak his senseless platitudes; he who was on the outside of all this sorrow?
He turned away; Virginia followed him, and they moved in silence across the lawn. It was Virginia who spoke first.
“You will write me as each stage of your journey is finished; won't you, Mr. Benson? And you will leave nothing undone? You will not come back until you know?” She dwelt upon the last word with almost tragic insistence. Her wistful glance searched his face. “Forgive me, I know I have no right to question it, but you will not rest content until you have exhausted every source from which knowledge may be gleaned? Days and weeks, even months, will not count with you?”