Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/240

  they were singing they heard Mr. Murray drive into the yard.

"There's papa," said Mrs. Murray. "He will be tired and hungry," and she hurried out to meet her husband, followed by Harry and Hughie, leaving Ranald and Maimie in the room together. Ranald had never been alone with her before, nor indeed had he ever spent five minutes of his life alone with any girl before now. But he did not feel awkward or shy; he was thinking now, as he had been thinking now and then through the whole evening, of only one thing, that Maimie was going away. That would make a great difference to him, so great that he was conscious of a heart-sinking at the mere thought of it. During the last weeks, his life had come to move about a center, and that center was Maimie; and now that she was going away, there would be nothing left. Nothing, that is, that really mattered. But the question he was revolving in his mind was, would she forget all about him. He knew he would never forget her, that was, of course, impossible, for so many things would remind him of her. He would never see the moonlight falling through the trees as it fell that night of the sugaring-off, without thinking of her. He would never see the shadows in the evening, or hear the wind in the leaves, without thinking of her. The church and the minister's pew, the manse and all belonging to it would remind him of Maimie. He would recall how she looked at different times and places, the turn of her head, the way her hair fell on her neck, her laugh, the little toss of her chin, and the curve in her