From that distance the last farewells were exchanged.
As long as the carriage was in sight, Magdalen looked back at them; she
waved her handkerchief as she turned the corner. In a moment more
the last thread which bound her to them was broken; the familiar
companionship of many months was a thing of the past already!
Captain Wragge closed the house door on the idlers who were looking in
from the Parade. He led his wife back into the sitting-room, and spoke
to her with a forbearance which she had never yet experienced from him.
"She has gone her way," he said, "and in another hour we shall have gone
ours. Cry your cry out--I don't deny she's worth crying for."
Even then--even when the dread of Magdalen's future was at its
darkest in his mind--the ruling habit of the man's life clung to him.
Mechanically he unlocked his dispatch-box. Mechanically he opened his
Book of Accounts, and made the closing entry--the entry of his last
transaction with Magdalen--in black and white. "By Rec'd from Miss
Vanstone," wrote the captain, with a gloomy brow, "Two hundred pounds."
"You won't be angry with me?" said Mrs. Wragge, looking timidly at her
husband through her tears.
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