"
"You seem to be taking my going very coolly," Philippa remarked.
"I told you how I felt about it just now," Helen reminded her.
"Your going is like a great black cloud that I have seen growing
larger and larger, day by day. I think that, in his way, Dick
will suffer just as much as Henry. We shall all be utterly
miserable."
"Why don't you try and persuade me not to go, then?" Philippa
demanded. "You sit there talking about it as though I were going
on an ordinary country-house visit."
Helen raised her head, and Philippa saw that her eyes were filled
with tears.
"Philippa dear," she said, "if I thought that all the tears that
were ever shed, all the words that were ever dragged from one's
heart, could have any real effect, I'd go on my knees to you now
and implore you to give up this idea. But I think--you won't be
angry with me, dear?--I think you would go just the same."
"You seem to think that I am obstinate," Philippa complained.
"You see, you are temperamental, dear," Helen reminded her. "You
have a complex nature. I know very well that you need the daily
love that Henry doesn't seem to have been willing to give you
lately, and I couldn't stop your turning towards the sun, you know.
Only--all the time there's that terrible anxiety--are you quite
sure it is the sun?"
"You believe in Mr.
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