But any such parting word would be false, and the falsehood would be against his own child! 'Does she expect it ?' he said, in a low voice, when his wife came up to him as he was dressing.
'She expects nothing.

I am thinking that perhaps you would tell her that she could not go to-day.' 'I could not say "to-day." If I tell her anything, I must tell her all.' 'Will not that be best ?' Then the old man thought it all over.

It would be very much the best for him not to say anything about it if he could reconcile it to his conscience to leave the house without doing so.

And he knew well that his wife was more powerful than he,--gifted with greater persistence, more capable of enduring a shower of tears or a storm of anger.

The success of the plan would be more probable if the conduct of it were left entirely to his wife, but his conscience was sore within him.
'You will come with me to the gate,' he said to his daughter, after their silent breakfast.
'Oh yes;--to say good-bye.' Then he took his hat, and his gloves, and his umbrella, very slowly, lingering in the hall as he did so, while his wife kept her seat firm and square at the breakfast table.