'We are English too,' said Esther, sighing.
'Therefore you ought to be glad I am going.'
But Esther's cheek only grew a shade paler.
'Will you keep up your studies, like a good girl?'
'And send me a drawing now and then, to let me see how you are getting on?'
She lifted her eyes to him again, for one of those grave, appealing looks. 'How could I get it to you?'
'Your father will have my address. I shall write to him, and I shall write to you.'
She made no answer. The things filling her heart were too many for it, and too strong; there came no tears, but her breathing was laboured; and her brow was dark with what seemed a mountain of oppression. Pitt was half-glad that just now there came a call for Esther from the room behind them. Both went in. The colonel wanted Esther to search in a repository of papers for a certain English print of some months back.
'Just off, sir,' said Pitt, eyeing the little figure that was busy in the corner among the papers. It gave him more pain than he had thought to leave it. 'I wish you would come over, colonel. Why shouldn't you? It would do you good. I mean, when there is peace again upon the high seas.'
'I shall never leave this place again till I leave all that is earthly,' Colonel Gainsborough answered.
'May I take the liberty sometimes of writing to you, sir?'
'And if I find anything that would amuse Esther, sir, may I tell her about it?'
'I have no objection. She will be very much obliged to you. So you are going? Heaven be with you, my boy. You have lightened many an hour for me.'
He rose up and shook Pitt's hand, with a warm grasp and a dignified manner of leave-taking. But when Pitt would have taken Esther's hand, she brushed past him and went out into the hall. Pitt followed, with another bow to the colonel, and courteously shutting the door behind him, wishing the work well over. Esther, however, made no fuss, hardly any demonstration. She stood there in the hall and gave him her hand silently, I might say coldly, for the hand was very cold, and her face was white with suppressed feeling. Pitt grasped the hand and looked at the face; hesitated; then opened his arms and took her into them and kissed her. Was she not like a little sister? and was it possible to let this heartache go without alleviation? No doubt if the colonel had been present he would not have ventured such a breach of forms; but as it was Pitt defied forms. He clasped the sorrowing little girl in his arms and kissed her brow and her cheek and her lips.