“By stage to Portsmouth.”
“And when?”
“This day week.”
There was a pause; then Virginia said slowly.
“I shall miss you, Mr. Benson. I begin to understand how dependent your kindness has made me.”
“You are to go to the judge for everything, you know?” he said. “Advice, and all that. You'll find him very kind.”
“Yes—but I do not think he can take your place.”
An unexpected joy shone in Benson's face.
Virginia's glance sought the wooded heights of Landray's Hill. There she had seen the last of Stephen Landray. Now a long line of freight wagons was just disappearing about the turn in the road where months before she had caught the flutter of his handkerchief. She pressed her hand to her heart. What had she been thinking of, why had she let him go? Even then she might have stopped him; it was not too late—but she had let him go. She rested her arms on the bars, while uncontrollable sobs shook her.
Benson watched her, white-faced and miserable, and with a bitter sense of the futility of words. A puff of wind showered the bowed head with the petals of the apple blossoms, which caught among the masses of her hair. For a moment Benson looked with all the hunger of his love in his eyes; and then he turned away.