“My dear Will,” she wrote, “I can’t keep secrets as long as you.  This is to inform you that a week ago I let The Haws, on annual tenancy, to a friend of Mr. Turnbull’s, who was looking for such a house.  The day after to-morrow we begin our removal to a home which Jane has taken near to Miss Winter’s in Suffolk.  That she was able to find just what we wanted at a moment’s notice encourages me in thinking that Providence is on our side, or, as your dear father used to say, that the oracle has spoken.  In a week’s time I hope to send news that we are settled.  You are forbidden to come here before our departure, but will be invited to the new home as soon as possible.  The address is—­” etc.

The same post brought a letter from Jane.

“Don’t be alarmed by the news,” she wrote.  “Mother has been so firm in this resolve since the day of your leaving us, that I could only obey her.  Wonderful and delightful to tell, she seems better in health.  I dare not make too much of this, after what Dr. Edge said, but for the present she is certainly stronger.  As you suppose, I am going to work with Miss Winter.  Come and see us when we are settled, and you shall hear all our plans.  Everything has been done so quickly, that I live in a sort of a dream.  Don’t worry, and of course don’t on any account come.”

These letters arrived in the evening, and, after reading them, Warburton was so moved that he had to go out and walk under the starry sky, in quiet streets.  Of course the motive on which his mother had acted was a desire to free him as soon as possible from the slavery of the shop; but that slavery had now grown so supportable, that he grieved over the sacrifice made for his sake.  After all, would he not have done better to live on with his secret?  And yet—­and yet—­

CHAPTER 40

With curiosity which had in it a touch of amusement, Will was waiting to hear from Norbert Franks.  He waited for nearly a month, and was beginning to feel rather hurt at his friend’s neglect, perhaps a little uneasy on another score, when there arrived an Italian postcard, stamped Venice.  “We have been tempted as far as this,” ran the hurried scrawl.  “Must be home in ten days.  Shall be delighted to see you again.”  Warburton puckered his brows and wondered whether a previous letter or card had failed to reach him.  But probably not.

At the end of September, Franks wrote from his London address, briefly but cordially, with an invitation to luncheon on the next day, which was Sunday.  And Warburton went.

He was nervous as he knocked at the door; he was rather more nervous as he walked into the studio.  Norbert advanced to him with a shout of welcome, and from a chair in the background rose Mrs. Franks.  Perceptibly changed, both of them.  The artist’s look was not quite so ingenuous as formerly; his speech, resolute in friendliness, had not quite the familiar note.  Rosamund, already more mature of aspect, smiled somewhat too persistently, seemed rather too bent on showing herself unembarrassed.  They plunged into talk of Tyrol, of the Dolomites, of Venice, and, so talking, passed into the dining-room.