"Oh, Mr President," he said, as he met me coming up the drive towards the house, "this is kind of you. And you who must be so busy just before your departure!"
"I could not go without a word of farewell to you." I had not spoken with him since we had parted on the top of the hill on our way out to the college, when the horses had been taken from the carriage, and he had walked back to life and Little Christchurch instead of making his way to his last home, and to find deposition with all the glory of a great name.
"It is very kind of you. Come in. Eva is not at home."
"I have just parted with her at my own house. So she and Jack are to make a match of it. I need not tell you how more than contented I shall be that my son should have such a wife. Eva to me has been always dear, almost as a daughter. Now she is like my own child."
"I am sure that I can say the same of Jack."
"Yes; Jack is a good lad too. I hope he will stick to the business."
"He need not trouble himself about that. He will have Little Christchurch and all that belongs to it as soon as I am gone. I had made up my mind only to allow Eva an income out of it while she was thinking of that fellow Grundle. That man is a knave."
I could not but remember that Grundle had been a Fixed-Periodist, and that it would not become me to abuse him; and I was aware that though Crasweller was my sincere friend, he had come to entertain of late an absolute hatred of all those, beyond myself, who had advocated his own deposition.
"Jack, at any rate, is happy," said I, "and Eva. You and I, Crasweller have had our little troubles to imbitter the evenings of our life."
"My ambition has been disappointed. I cannot conceal the fact from myself,--nor from you. It has come to pass that during the last year or two we have lived with different hopes. And these hopes have been founded altogether on the position which you might occupy."
"I should have gone mad up in that college, Neverbend."
"I should have gone mad all the same. I should have committed suicide."
"To save yourself from an honourable--deposition!"
"The fixed day, coming at a certain known hour; the feeling that it must come, though it came at the same time so slowly and yet so fast; every day growing shorter day by day, and every season month by month; the sight of these chimneys--"