Next came the bustle of departure. Effie was despatched in the fly with the luggage and Betty, the fat Welsh servant, to look after her. Beatrice and Geoffrey were to walk to the station.
“Time for you to be going, Mr. Bingham,” said Mr. Granger. “There, good-bye, good-bye! God bless you! Never had such charming lodgers before. Hope you will come back again, I’m sure. By the way, they are certain to summon you as a witness at the trial of that villain Jones.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Granger,” Geoffrey answered; “you must come and see me in town. A change will do you good.”
“Well, perhaps I may. I have not had a change for twenty-five years. Never could afford it. Aren’t you going to say good-bye to Elizabeth?”
“Good-bye, Miss Granger,” said Geoffrey politely. “Many thanks for all your kindness. I hope we shall meet again.”
“Do you?” answered Elizabeth; “so do I. I am sure that we shall meet again, and I am sure that I shall be glad to see you when we do, Mr. Bingham,” she added darkly.
In another minute he had left the Vicarage and, with Beatrice at his side, was walking smartly towards the station.
“This is very melancholy,” he said, after a few moments’ silence.
“Going away generally is,” she answered—“either for those who go or those who stay behind,” she added.
“If I had my way, then, you should spend a good deal of your time in writing,” he said. “You don’t know,” he added earnestly, “what a delight it has been to me to learn to know you. I have had no greater pleasure in my life.”
“By the way,” Geoffrey said presently, “there is something I want to ask you. You are as good as a reference book for quotations, you know. Some lines have been haunting me for the last twelve hours, and I cannot remember where they come from.”
“What are they?” she asked, looking up, and Geoffrey saw, or thought he saw, a strange fear shining in her eyes.
“Here are four of them,” he answered unconcernedly; “we have no time for long quotations:
“‘That shall be to-morrow, Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight.’”
Beatrice heard—heard the very lines which had been upon her lips in the wild midnight that had gone. Her heart seemed to stop; she became white as the dead, stumbled, and nearly fell. With a supreme effort she recovered herself.