CHAPTER VII
SHE PARTS WITH HER SWEETHEART
Well, on the following week, my sweetheart went to Sunderland, and I felt as widowed as though I had been his wife and he had died. He crossed from Sunderland to Liverpool, and was absent a fortnight. From Liverpool he wrote to tell me that he was very well satisfied with the Arab Chief, and had agreed with her owners, who did business in Liverpool, to take command of her and purchase a share to the value of three thousand pounds.
The influence of his love was very strong upon me while he was away. He had hinted, but gently, that he thought my aunt right in objecting to my old love of rambling—I mean to the excursions I used to make down the river and to other parts, often sleeping out for a night or two at a time, as you have heard; and during his absence I went nowhere, save to my aunt’s or to the houses of some of my particular friends.
Meanwhile you will not suppose that I saw nothing of Mr. Stanford. We lived in the same house, and were, therefore, bound to meet, not, indeed, in our separate apartments, but upon the staircase or in the passages. When Tom had been gone about a week, my stepfather knocked upon my door one morning as I sat at breakfast. I bade him enter, and he sat down at the table.
‘I met Mrs. Johnstone yesterday,’ said he, ‘and she gave me a piece of news. Allow me to congratulate you,’ and he inclined his head.
I bowed slightly in return, keeping silence.
‘I am aware that I have no claim upon you, Miss Johnstone,’ said he.
‘None whatever,’ I cried.