So she knelt, clinging to him, loving him, admiring him, thinking only of what was for his good--sweet, simple, loving soul, so utterly unconscious of the doom her innocent prayers were bringing down on her own head. They took time to think of it. They consulted friends, who had their interest best at heart, and the universal opinion was that Sir Ronald should go. It was with her own heart that Lady Hermione consulted most. “If it were for five, or even four years,” she said to herself, “I should not be willing for him to leave us, but only for two, and they will be so happily spent. How often I have wished that he would travel, that he would seek change of scene! And now the very opportunity offers for travel, with men whose very names refresh him when he hears them. If I can make up my mind to the sacrifice he will return strong, well, hearty, happy, with the last vestige of gloom vanished, and we shall be happy as long as we live. He has never left this spot since the tragedy happened, and he has brooded over it too long.” Sir Ronald asked his friend and comrade, Kenelm Eyrle to spend a week at Aldenmere, and help them to come to some decision. Kenelm spoke boldly. “If I live in the shade, Ronald,” he said, “you may go into the sun. Nothing does my heart so much good as to see you happy, and to know that men do homage to your talent. My advice is to--go.” “And you say that from your heart?” asked Sir Ronald. “Yes; and Ronald, I promise to watch over your wife and children while you are away.” “Then,” said Sir Ronald, “I think I shall go. Let me see what does Baby Clare say? Baby, what shall papa do--shall he go?” Baby Clare, quite unconscious of all that hung upon her answer, said, in her quaint, baby fashion: “Yis, papa, go.” So the wife who idolized him, the little children who loved him best in the world, and the friend who was to him as a brother, all joined in persuading him to go, knowing so little--God help them!--of what would come from it. “When does the expedition start?” asked Kenelm, after the decision had been reached. “In the middle of October,” replied Sir Ronald, and from that time Lady Alden knew she had done right, in trying to persuade him to go. There was, of course, the natural sorrow of a man who is about to leave wife, home and children, but he was so eager, so interested, so active. Day by day, hour by hour, the clouds seemed to go farther from him. There was little trace left now of the once gloomy Sir Ronald. Letters of compliment and congratulation poured in upon him, in the midst of the hurry of his preparations. The number of visitors and the many engrossing affairs to be settled before his departure left him little or no time for sad thoughts, and if she who loved him so generously troubled over his going, no words of hers ever said so. If her pillow at night was wet with tears, her smile was bright enough during the day. “It was best for him,” she knew, and love went no farther than that.