The next morning both Grey and Jack departed by different trains, for the latter was going to the Scottish house where Lady Jane and Blanche were staying, and then to Trevellian Castle to see his cousin Hal, while Grey was going another way. And Neil said good-by without a pang, but Bessie was full of regret, especially for Grey, whom she should miss so much and to whom she said she hoped she should see him again.
"I am sure you will," he answered. "I am to leave Oxford next summer and join my Aunt Lucy, who is coming in June for a trip on the Continent. But before I go home I shall come here again, and I shall always remember this Christmas as the pleasantest I ever spent, and shall keep the knot of ribbon as a souvenir of Stoneleigh and you. Good-by," and with a pressure of the hand he had held in his all the time he was talking, he was gone, and Bessie felt that something very bright and strong and helpful had suddenly been taken from her, and nothing left in its place but Neil, who, by contrast with the American, did not seem to her quite the same Neil as before.