As the words fell from her lips her eyes crept up to his face, watching the effect of her statement.  It was a cold, almost brutal way of putting it, she knew, but she dared not trust herself with anything less formal.

For a moment he sat perfectly still, the color gone from his cheeks, his eyes fixed on hers, a cold chill benumbing the roots of his hair.  The suddenness of the announcement seemed to have stunned him.

“For how long?” he asked in a halting voice.

“I don’t know.  Not less than two years; perhaps longer.”

“Two years?  Is Lucy ill?”

“No; she wants to study music, and she couldn’t go alone.”

“Have you made up your mind to this?” he asked, in a more positive tone.  His self-control was returning now.

“Yes.”

Doctor John rose from his chair, paced the room slowly for a moment, and crossing to the fireplace with his back to Jane, stood under her father’s portrait, his elbows on the mantel, his head in his hand. interwoven with the pain which the announcement had given him was the sharper sorrow of her neglect of him.  In forming her plans she had never once thought of her lifelong friend.

“Why did you not tell me something of this before?” The inquiry was not addressed to Jane, but to the smouldering coals.  “How have I ever failed you?  What has my daily life been but an open book for you to read, and here you leave me for years, and never give me a thought.”

Jane started in her seat.

“Forgive me, my dear friend!” she answered quickly in a voice full of tenderness.  “I did not mean to hurt you.  It is not that I love all my friends here the less—­and you know how truly I appreciate your own friendship—­but only that I love my sister more; and my duty is with her.  I only decided last night.  Don’t turn your back on me.  Come and sit by me, and talk to me,” she pleaded, holding out her hand.  “I need all your strength.”  As she spoke the tears started to her eyes and her voice sank almost to a whisper.

The doctor lifted his head from his palm and walked quickly toward her.  The suffering in her voice had robbed him of all resentment.

“Forgive me, I did not mean it.  Tell me,” he said, in a sudden burst of tenderness—­all feeling about himself had dropped away—­“why must you go so soon?  Why not wait until spring?” He had taken his seat beside her now and sat looking into her eyes.

“Lucy wants to go at once,” she replied, in a tone as if the matter did not admit of any discussion.

“Yes, I know.  That’s just like her.  What she wants she can never wait a minute for, but she certainly would sacrifice some pleasure of her own to please you.  If she was determined to be a musician it would be different, but it is only for her pleasure, and as an accomplishment.”  He spoke earnestly and impersonally, as he always did when she consulted him on any of her affairs, He was trying, too, to wipe from her mind all remembrance of his impatience.