His mother’s words broke like a bombshell into the midst of his fond imaginings. "Doris has just been telling me," she said, in low, cruel tones, "that she will _never_ marry you!"
"What? What are you saying?" exclaimed Bernard, agitatedly, the joy in his face giving place to an expression of great anxiety.
His mother said again, "Doris has just been saying to me that she will never, _never_ marry you. She told me I was to tell you so."
"But this is most unaccountable!" cried Bernard, beginning to walk up and down the room. "This is most unaccountable," he repeated. "Why, she told me----" he broke off, beginning again, "Where is she? I must see her--must hear from her own lips the reason of this change."
"You cannot see her, Bernard," said his mother, in slow, icy tones. "You cannot see her. She is not in this house----"
"Not in this house? Not here? What do you mean?"
"But has she left no message for me?" he asked, with exceeding anxiousness.
"She left the message I have given you," answered his mother. "Tell Bernard," she said, "that I will never, _never_ marry him!"
"That message I refuse to receive!" cried Bernard. "Poor Doris was in such trouble she did not know what she was saying--I am sure she did not mean that."
"I suppose you think I am telling you a lie?" began his mother hotly.
Bernard did not reply, indeed he did not apparently hear her words. He hurried out into the hall, got his hat, and then returned to the room to say to his mother:
"I shall find out. I shall follow her, wherever she has gone. You will not see me again till she is found!"
But he had gone. No use, Mrs. Cameron, in rushing after him into the hall, with all the arguments you can think of! No use in standing there, frowning and execrating his folly! The influence that draws him after Doris, in her poor distracted flight, is stronger than that which binds him to your warped and selfish nature. Love is spurring his footsteps onward, far, far away from you. If you wish to keep him by your side, you, too, must have some of its magic.
Bernard first went on his bicycle to Doncaster, to the railway station, where, after many inquiries and much futile questioning, he ascertained that a young lady answering to the description he gave of Miss Anderson had booked for King’s Cross, London, and had set off to go there by the 7.34 train.