But there
will be no coming back. It will be all over when our car passes
over the hills there. You will not regret? You care enough even
for this supreme sacrifice?"
"I shall never reproach you as long as I live," she promised. "I
have made up my mind to come, and I am ready."
"But it is because you care?" he pleaded anxiously.
"It is because I care, for one reason."
"In the great way?" he persisted. "In the only way?"
She hesitated. He suddenly felt her hand grow colder in his. He
saw her frame shiver beneath its weight of furs.
"Don't ask me quite that," she begged breathlessly. "Be content
to know that I have counted the cost, and that I am willing to come."
He felt the chill of impending disaster. He closed the little gate
through which they had been about to pass, and stood with his back
to it. In that faint light which seemed to creep over the world
before the moon itself was revealed, she seemed to him at that
moment the fairest, the most desirable thing on earth. Her face
was upturned towards his, half pathetic, half protesting against
the revelation which he was forcing from her.
"Listen, Philippa," he said, "Miss Fairclough warned me of one thing.
I put it on one side. It did not seem to be possible. Now I must
ask you a question. You have some other motive, have you not, for
choosing to come away with me? It is not only because you love me
better than any one else in the world, as I do you, and therefore
that we belong to one another and it is right and good that we
should spend our lives in one another's company? There is something
else, is there not, at the root of your determination? Some ally?"
It was a strange moment for Philippa.
Pages:
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260