"Then you are going directly?" she almost whispered.
"Yes; I leave here the day after to-morrow, and I sail in about a fortnight. The squire thought the sooner I was out of the way the better."
"Nor ever write?" asked Rose, with a sob in her throat.
"That's as may be; I'd write to one who cared."
She was looking at him with pleading eyes, but he would not trust himself to return her glance.
"Rose," he said, "there's not the woman now that I would ask to be my wife. I'm guilty, before God, of two black sins; but if He gives me time to live it down and earn a clean name again----"
"He will! He will!" said Rose. "And, Tom, it does not matter if it's years, I'll wait." And then she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
His face was ashen grey; his arms ached with the longing to return her embrace and hold her close to his heart, but he let her go.
"Before God, Rose, my darling, I'll live worthy of your kiss! Maybe it won't be long before I dare return it."
The next instant he was gone, not daring to look back at her.
"The Websters are off to London, Paul," said Sally, about two days after Tom's departure.
Paul started at the sudden mention of the name.
"I did not think they intended to go to town until after the New Year. Mrs. Webster dilates largely upon the superiority of a Christmas in the country versus a Christmas in London; but, I suppose, it is as sincere as most of her statements?"
"I think May has had more to do with it than her mother. She says Mrs. Webster has fussed a good deal over Dixon's flight, she trusted him so thoroughly. And May thinks it will be easier to get a good coachman in London, and that it will take off her mother's thoughts from an unpleasant subject. She now has visions of Dixon's return in company with an armed body of burglars, and prophesies cheerfully that they will all be found dead in their beds one morning, and that the house will be ransacked."
Paul laughed. "Under the circumstances Miss Webster is wise to remove her forcibly to London," he said. But he privately conjectured that May's real reason for flight lay in her desire to get away from himself. "Has anything been heard of Dixon?" he went on.
"Nothing. I don't think any very keen search has been made for him. Mrs. Webster declares that she would far rather lose her money than appear in a court of law, or have her name bandied about in the papers. I think, Paul, that if you approve I shall be off to London, too, when the New Year comes."