Free The Prodigal Girl by Grace Livingston Hill

“I’ve got to act immediately, the first thing in the morning. There isn’t an hour to lose. I’ve been thinking it over in every detail, and there’s only one thing to do. But I’ve got to have your hearty cooperation or it will be a failure.”
    “Haven’t I always cooperated, Chester?” she asked half tearfully, feeling a premonition of even more than she had feared.
    She leaned toward him, and her hand stole within his. He gripped it feverishly, eagerly, as if it was something strong and comforting to hold to.
    “You certainly have, dear, always. You’re a wonderful woman. That is why I shrink from putting this all upon you, especially just now when I had so hoped that I was going to be able to make life beautiful and easy for you from now on. But I see no other solution for our problems.”
    Bravely she rose to the occasion as she always had for lesser troubles:
    “Then, Chester, let’s accept it and get a good time out of it somehow, as we always have.”
    “Bless you, my dear!” said Chester, folding her hand closer and giving it a firmer clasp. “Well, then, wonderful little woman, how soon can you be ready to start?”
    She caught her breath with the thought of all she was going to give up. Their lovely home into which they had put so many comforts and sweet memories. Their host of friends! The good schools—all the things that were so superior and had brought them to Briardale in preference to any other suburb. It came over her like a great shock. She had never thought it could come to this. She had expected possible economies but not to have to go away. Then she rallied her strength and forced her voice to be steady:
    “Why, let me see, the dressmaker is coming next week—”
    “You’ll have to cut that out. It won’t be necessary anyway, now.”
    “Oh,” said Eleanor, with another shock, “perhaps not.” Poor Chester! “Why, I can’t tell without thinking. There’ll be a lot of packing and sorting to do, you know.”
    “Not much!” said Chester crisply. “We’ll only need to take the barest necessities, of course good warm things, and bedding.”
    A new fear gripped her. Then the failure must have been complete.
    She was still for a minute trying to take it all in, and then her voice trembled back to steadiness as she asked:
    “But what will we do with the house—and—and the things we are leaving behind? Won’t we have to sort—and—and—pack—”
    “No,” said Chester quickly. “I’d thought of that. Hannah will be here, and she knows where everything is, and we can send for anything we may have forgotten. There are professional movers, you know, if there is anything Hannah and John can’t manage. There won’t be anything like that to hinder.”
    Appalled, she considered again. At last she asked falteringly:
    “Why, how soon did you think we could get off, Chester?”
    “About noon tomorrow,” he answered crisply, as if it were the greatest relief in the world to have the announcement made.

Chapter 6
    T omorrow!” she gasped. “Why, Chester, it is tomorrow already, and you haven’t been to sleep yet! You know the doctor wouldn’t possibly give his consent to your traveling tomorrow!”
    She said the last in a soothing tone as one would speak to a sick child who demanded cake and ice cream.
    “The doctor has nothing whatever to do with this,” he said impatiently. “It is something you and I have to settle. As a matter of fact, if it comforts you any, I mentioned it to the doctor that I might be going away on a long trip tomorrow, and he seemed to think it would be the best thing I could do.”
    She lay still, growing cold at the thought of the inevitable, unable for the moment to take in all that had befallen her in one short night.
    She was still so long that he thought she had gone to sleep.
    “Eleanor,” he asked cautiously, “you’re not asleep? Why, Eleanor, you’re not crying, are you?”
    “N–no, Chester,” she managed with a little catch