CHAPTER XII

THE GOOD-BYE GATE

Fortunately they were so late in getting to the station that there was no time for a prolonged leave-taking.  Phil hurried away to the baggage-room to check their trunks.  Henrietta made a move as if to follow.  Her overwrought sympathies kept her nervously opening and shutting her hands, for she dreaded scenes, and would not have put herself in the way of witnessing a painful parting, had she not thought she owed it to Joyce to stand by her to the last.

Joyce noticed the movement, and divining the cause, said with a little smile, as she laid a detaining hand on her arm, “Don’t be scared, Henry.  We are not going to have any high jinks, are we, Mary.  We made the old Vicar’s acquaintance too early in the game and have been practising his motto too many years to go back on him now.  We’re going to keep inflexible, no matter what happens.  Aren’t we, Mary?”

For several minutes Mary had been seeing things through a blur of tears, which came at the thought of what a long parting this might be.  There was no telling when she would see Joyce again.  It might be years.  But she answered a resolute yes, and Joyce went on.

“Why, we taught it even to Norman when he wasn’t more than a baby.  ‘Swallow your sobs, and stiffen,’ we’d say, and he’d gulp them down every time, and brace up like a little soldier.  Oh, if I’d just flop and let myself go I could cry myself into a shoestring in five minutes.  But thanks to early discipline we’re not going to do it.  Are we, Mary?”

By this time Mary could only shake her head in reply, but she did it resolutely, and the determination carried her safely through the parting with Joyce.  But Phil almost broke down the self-control she was struggling to maintain, when he came back with the checks and hurried aboard the train with her and Betty.  Taking both her hands in his he looked down with both voice and face so full of tender sympathy, that her lips quivered and her eyes filled with tears.

“You brave little thing!” he exclaimed in a low tone.  “If there is ever anything that I can do to make it easier, let me know, and I’ll come.  Promise me now.  You’ll let me know.”

“I—­I promise,” she answered, faltering over the sob that rose in her throat as she tried to speak, but smiling bravely up at him.

With one more hand-clasp that spoke sympathy and understanding even more than his words had done, and somehow left her with a sense of being comforted and protected, he went away.  But half way down the aisle he turned and dashed back, drawing a little package from his pocket as he came.

“Something to read on the way,” he explained.  “Wait till you get to that lonesome stretch of desert,” Then with a smile that she carried in her memory for years, he said once more, “Good-bye, little Vicar!  Remember, I’ll come!”