“Oh, we shall do very well, I don’t doubt.”
“I hope you will forgive me, papa, for all I may have done wrong. I hope you will not miss me; that is, I hope—oh, I hope you will miss me a little, for it breaks my heart when you look at me like that.”
“We shall do very well,” said Waring, not looking at her at all, “both you and I.”
“And you have nothing to say to me, papa?”
“Nothing—except that I hope you will like your new life and find everything pleasant. Good-bye, my dear; it is time you were going.”
And that was all. Everybody was at the station, it was true, which made it no place for leave-takings; and Frances did not know that he watched the train from the loggia till the white plume of steam disappeared with a roar in the next of those many tunnels that spoil the beautiful Cornice road. Constance walked back in the midst of the Gaunts and Durants, looking, as she always did, the mistress of the situation. But neither did Frances, blotted out in the corner of the carriage, crying behind her veil and her handkerchief, leaving all she knew behind her, understand with what a tug at her heart Constance saw the familiar little ugly face of her brother for the last time at the carriage-window, and turned back to the deadly monotony of the shelter she had sought for herself, with a sense that everything was over, and she herself completely deserted, like a wreck upon a desolate shore.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.