“I am glad to know,” said Rowland, “that I shall probably often hear about you.  I assure you I shall often think about you!” These words were half impulsive, half deliberate.  They were the simple truth, and he had asked himself why he should not tell her the truth.  And yet they were not all of it; her hearing the rest would depend upon the way she received this.  She received it not only, as Rowland foresaw, without a shadow of coquetry, of any apparent thought of listening to it gracefully, but with a slight movement of nervous deprecation, which seemed to betray itself in the quickening of her step.  Evidently, if Rowland was to take pleasure in hearing about her, it would have to be a highly disinterested pleasure.  She answered nothing, and Rowland too, as he walked beside her, was silent; but as he looked along the shadow-woven wood-path, what he was really facing was a level three years of disinterestedness.  He ushered them in by talking composed civility until he had brought Miss Garland back to her companions.

He saw her but once again.  He was obliged to be in New York a couple of days before sailing, and it was arranged that Roderick should overtake him at the last moment.  The evening before he left Northampton he went to say farewell to Mrs. Hudson.  The ceremony was brief.  Rowland soon perceived that the poor little lady was in the melting mood, and, as he dreaded her tears, he compressed a multitude of solemn promises into a silent hand-shake and took his leave.  Miss Garland, she had told him, was in the back-garden with Roderick:  he might go out to them.  He did so, and as he drew near he heard Roderick’s high-pitched voice ringing behind the shrubbery.  In a moment, emerging, he found Miss Garland leaning against a tree, with her cousin before her talking with great emphasis.  He asked pardon for interrupting them, and said he wished only to bid her good-by.  She gave him her hand and he made her his bow in silence.  “Don’t forget,” he said to Roderick, as he turned away.  “And don’t, in this company, repent of your bargain.”

“I shall not let him,” said Miss Garland, with something very like gayety.  “I shall see that he is punctual.  He must go!  I owe you an apology for having doubted that he ought to.”  And in spite of the dusk Rowland could see that she had an even finer smile than he had supposed.

Roderick was punctual, eagerly punctual, and they went.  Rowland for several days was occupied with material cares, and lost sight of his sentimental perplexities.  But they only slumbered, and they were sharply awakened.  The weather was fine, and the two young men always sat together upon deck late into the evening.  One night, toward the last, they were at the stern of the great ship, watching her grind the solid blackness of the ocean into phosphorescent foam.  They talked on these occasions of everything conceivable, and had the air of having no secrets from each other.  But it was on Roderick’s conscience that this air belied him, and he was too frank by nature, moreover, for permanent reticence on any point.