Philippa rose slowly from the bed and started toward the door. "I feel as if I were in a horrible nightmare," she said. "What you have just told me about our--him, you know, and then your going away to live. It's all so sudden and so dreadful. O Alec, I can't stand it to have you go!"
To his great surprise and confusion, for Philippa had never been demonstrative in her affection, she threw her arms round his neck, and, dropping her head on his shoulder, began sobbing violently.
"Oh, come now, Flip," he protested, awkwardly patting the heavy braids of hair swung over her shoulder; "I wouldn't have told you if I'd thought you'd take it so. I thought you had so much grit that you'd stand by me and back me up if Aunt Eunice objected. We're not going to be separated for ever. From what the man told me of the business, I'm sure that I can make enough in a year or so to send for you. Then you can come and keep house for me, and we'll pay back every cent we've cost Aunt Eunice, so she'll have something in her old age. Oh, stop crying, like a good girl, Flip! Don't make it any harder for me than it already is. You don't want me to be late, do you, and miss the best chance of my life? Punctuality counts for everything when a man's looking for a reliable employee."
Without a word, but still sobbing, Philippa rushed from the room. He heard her going down the back stairs and across the kitchen. When the outer door closed behind her, he knew as well as if he had seen her that she was running down the orchard path to her old refuge in the June-apple-tree.
"The stars ought to be out now," thought Alec, a few minutes later, as he slipped into his best coat. Pulling up the shade, he peered out through the open window. "There'll not be any to-night," he added; "looks as if it would rain."
The wind was rising. It blew the muslin curtains softly across his face. It had driven Miss Eunice and Macklin from the porch. Alec could hear their voices in the sitting-room. Suddenly another puff of wind blew the hall door shut, and the cheerful sound was lost.
"It's certainly going to storm!" he exclaimed, aloud. Raising his lamp for one more scrutiny of himself in the little mirror, he set it on his desk, while he hunted in the closet for an umbrella.