He could catch the odor of his father's cigar, just as he had in standing there so many times before; he pushed the door open and felt the familiar hot, close, smoke-laden atmosphere which his father seemed to find so congenial to his studies. Doctor Marley took off his spectacles and pushed his manuscript aside, and Marley felt that he never would forget that picture of the gray head bent in its earnest labors over that worn and littered desk; it was photographed for all time on his memory. His words with his father had always been few; there were no more now.
"Well, father," he said, "I've come to say good-by."
His father pushed back his chair and turned about. He half-rose, then sank back again and took his son's hand.
"Good-by, Glenn," he said. "You'll write?"
"Yes, write often," the doctor said. "And take care of yourself."
"Wait a moment." Doctor Marley was fumbling in his pocket. He drew forth a few dollars.
"Here, Glenn," he said. "I wish it could be more."
There was nothing more to do, or say. They went down stairs; Marley's bag was waiting for him in the hall. He kissed his mother again and then again; he shook his father's hand, and then he went.
"Write often," his father called out to him, as he went down the walk. It was all the old man could say.
The door closed, as the door of the Blairs' had closed. Inside Doctor Marley looked at his wife a moment.
"I suppose," he said, "I ought to have gone to the train with him."
Then he toiled up the stairs to his study and the sermon he was to preach when Glenn was gone.
Marley walked rapidly down Market Street toward the depot; in the dark houses that suddenly had taken on a new significance to him, people were sleeping, people who would awake the next morning in Macochee. He could not escape the torture of this thought; his mind revolved constantly about the mystery of his being still in Macochee, still within calling distance, almost, of Lavinia, of his father and mother, of all he loved in life, when in reality they had in an instant become as inaccessible to him as though the long miles of his exile already separated them.
Twenty minutes later, Lavinia, in her room, Mrs. Marley, at her prayers, and Doctor Marley sitting in deep absorption at his desk, heard the sonorous whistle of a locomotive sound ominously over the dark and quiet town.