This seemed the only thing to be done and Sir William finally decided to return to his home alone.

Virgie herself urged him to go, though her heart was almost breaking at the thought of the separation, for it might be that she would never see him again.

Still she was brave—­she put aside her own feelings out of regard for the duty which he owed his mother, and there was a possibility that he could return to her in the course of two or three weeks.

“Do not feel unduly anxious for me, Will,” she said to him, on the evening before he was to sail, “I know that Dr. Knox will do all for me that you can wish.  I will either write or send some message to you by every steamer, and I am going to trust that everything will be well.”

“But it is agony to me to leave you—­oh! my darling, if your heart fails you in the least, if you say you prefer to have me stay, I will not go even now,” he said, his own courage failing him and having more than half a mind to renounce his intended voyage even at that late hour.

“No, dear, I know that it is your duty to go,” Virgie answered, gently.  “I should never forgive myself, if your mother should die, for keeping you from her at such a time.”

“But if—­I should lose you, too,” he was going to say, but checked himself and concluded, “but if you should be neglected and unhappy?”

“I shall not be, Will; you have provided against the former contingency most generously, and the latter I can regulate myself.  I will not be unhappy, for I know that you are doing right and that you will return to me the moment that you are at liberty to do so.”

“Indeed I shall,” he answered, as he gathered her close to his breast and rained passionate kisses upon her lovely face.

But his heart was very heavy notwithstanding her apparent cheerfulness.

A superstitious dread seemed to have seized him, warning him that some fearful calamity would follow this separation.  He was not given to such unreasonable imaginings, and he reproached himself for indulging in them; but he could not shake them off nevertheless.

Morning came and with it the hour of departure and the last farewells.

Virgie wore a brave and even smiling face through all.  She had resolved that she would not unman him at the last moment.

She watched at her window until he drove away, waving her handkerchief and throwing him a kiss as he passed from sight, then the pent-up grief of her heart found vent in a wild burst of tears such as she had not shed since the hour of her father’s death.

But she would not indulge it long.

She had every comfort.  Her rooms were cheerful and elegant; a motherly, middle-aged woman had been engaged to remain with her as companion and nurse during her husband’s absence; she had an abundance of money at her command, and Dr. Knox had promised to look in upon her every day.  Surely she had nothing to complain of, save the enforced separation from her dear one, and that would not be for long, she trusted.