At Large

"So did I."

Another silence. Dick drummed idly upon the pane with his fingers. There was certainly a degree of regret in Alice's tone – enough to afford him a vague sense of gratitude to her.

"Is it not a terrible disappointment to your family?"

"I suppose it is," said Dick uneasily.

"And can you lightly grieve those who love you?"

She spoke as earnestly as though she belonged to that number herself; but, thought Dick, that must be from the force of her woman's sympathy for women. There was a slight catch in her voice, doubtless from the same cause. Could it be from any other cause? Dick trembled in the dusk by the window at the thought. No; it could not be. No; he did not wish it. He would not have her relent now. It was too late. He had set his mind on going; his passage was booked, his luggage was on board; nothing could unsettle him now. Was it not admitted in the beginning that he was an obstinate fellow? Besides, hope had been out of the range of his vision these many weeks. When a faint spark of hope burned on the horizon, was it natural that he should detect it at once? Yet her tones made him tremble.

As for Alice, her heart was beating with wild, sickening thuds. She felt that she was receiving her just deserts. Dick was as cold to her now as she had been cold to Dick before; only far colder, for she had but been trying him. Ah! but Nemesis was cruel in her justice! And she, Alice, so faint, so weary, so heartsick, so loveless, so full of remorse, so ready to love! And this the last chance of all!

"Is there nothing that could stop you from going now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

"No consideration upon earth!"

"Ah, you have taken your passage!"

"That's not it!"

He was indignant. A paltry seventy guineas!

"Then what is? It must be that you've made up your mind, and would not unmake it – no matter who asked you."

The slightest stress imaginable was laid upon the relative.

Dick was leaning against the window-ledge for support. His brain was whirling. He could scarcely believe his ears. There was a tearful tenderness in her voice which he could not, which he dared not understand.

"What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely.

"I mean that – that you – that I – "

The words ended in inarticulate sobs.

"Do you mean that you ask me to stay in England?"

Dick put this question in a voice that was absolutely stern, though it quivered with suppressed agitation. There was no answer: sobs were no answer. He crossed the room unsteadily, fell on his knees at her side, and took both her hands in his. Then he repeated the same question – in the same words, in the same tones.

The answer came in a trembling whisper, with a fresh torrent of tears:

"What if I did?"

"The Rome might sail without me."

A tearful incredulous smile from Alice.

"Do you tell me to stay? I stay or go at your bidding. Darling! you know what that means to us two?"

No answer.

"Speak! Speak, Alice, for I cannot bear this! The Rome would sail without me!"

Alice did speak. The Rome did sail without him.