At length the morning came for his departure. He had seen his mother for the last time the night before. They had met at the house of the widow Hinkley, between which and that of Calvert, his time had been chiefly spent, since the day of his affair with Stevens. His determination to depart was carefully concealed from his mother. He dreaded to hear her entreaties, and he doubted his own strength to endure them. His deportment, however, was sufficiently fond and tender, full of pain and passion, to have convinced her, had she been at all suspicious of the truth, of the design he meditated. But, as it was, it simply satisfied her affections; and the fond “good night” with which he addressed her ears at parting, was followed by a gush of tears which shocked the more sturdy courage of his cousin, and aroused the suspicions of the widow. “William Hinkley,” she said after the mother had gone home--“you must be thinking to leave Charlemont. I'm sure of it--I know it.” “If you do, say nothing, dear cousin; it will do no good--it can not prevent me now, and will only make our parting more painful.” “Oh, don't fear me,” said the widow--“I shan't speak of it, till it's known to everybody, for I think you right to go and do just as Gran'pa Calvert tells you; but you needn't have made it such a secret with me. I've always been too much of your friend to say a word.” “Alas!” said the youth mournfully, “until lately, dear cousin, I fancied that I had no friends--do not blame me, therefore, if I still sometimes act as if I had none.” “You have many friends, William, already--I'm sure you will find many more wherever you go; abler friends if not fonder ones, than you leave behind you.” The youth threw his arms round the widow's neck and kissed her tenderly. Her words sounded in his ears like some melodious prophecy. “Say no more, cousin,” he exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm; “I am so well pleased to believe what you promise me of the future, that I am willing to believe all. God bless you. I will never forget you.” The parting with Calvert was more touching in reality, but with fewer of the external signs of feeling. A few words, a single embrace and squeeze of the hand, and they separated; the old man hiding himself and his feelings in the dimness of his secluded abode, while his adopted son, with whom Ned Hinkley rode a brief distance on his way, struck spurs into his steed, as if to lose, in the rapid motion of the animal, the slow, sad feelings which were pressing heavily upon his heart. He had left Charlemont for ever. He had left it under circumstances of doubt, and despondency--stung by injustice, and baffled in the first ardent hopes of his youthful mind. “The world was all before him, where to choose.” Let us not doubt that the benignant Providence is still his guide. CHAPTER XXV. CONQUEST.