"I understand," said Charnock, and they turned and walked from the cemetery.
"Now will you speak?" she asked.
"No," he returned, "but I will go myself to Morocco."
"It is your life I am asking you to risk," said Miranda, who now that she had gained her end, began at once to realise the consequences it would entail upon her friend.
"I know that and take the risk," replied Charnock.
They walked out towards Europa Point, and turned into the Alameda.
"There is something else," said Miranda. "Your search will cost money. Every farthing of that I must pay. You will promise me that?"
"Yes."
"I wrote to M. Fournier yesterday. He will supply you. There is one thing more. This search will interrupt your career."
"It will, no doubt," he assented readily, and sitting down upon a seat he spoke to her words which she never forgot. "The quaint thing is that I have always been afraid lest a woman should break my career. I lived as a boy high up on the Yorkshire hills, two miles above a busy town. All day that town whirred in the hollow below. I could see it from my bedroom window, and all night the lights blazed in the factories; and when I went down into its streets there were always grimed men speeding upon their business. There was a certain grandeur about it which impressed me,--the perpetual shuffle of the looms, the loud, clear song of the wheels. That seemed to me the life to live. And I made up my mind that no woman should interfere. A brake on the wheel going up hill, a whip in the driver's hand going down,--that was what I thought of woman until I met you."