Jem's answer was more of a reply than might appear on the surface: "I have thoughts of going back to London."
"To leave Dutton?"
"It will be best."
"For Dutton? Or for yourself?"
"For both, perhaps; certainly for myself. There are difficult elements in my life at Dutton; and I have always felt that my true work lay among the London poor."
"Ah—I have always felt that that was a life worth living!"
"Any life may be, and ought to be, worth living, if there is a right motive-power."
Jem said this almost mechanically. Recollections of a long past scene flashed through his mind; of a meeting in the gorge; of the General's fair young wife looking with sad eyes, as she said, "It must be a splendid life—a life worth living—so different from most people's lives!"
The remembrance stirred Jem strongly. He almost forgot his present position; and a new impulse came over him, to speak out, not to leave her in ignorance of his love. What Jean had said of Evelyn, and what Evelyn now said of herself, seemed to place matters on a new level. Jem could hardly have told what he thought or expected; only the fresh impulse was overmastering; and he seemed to be suddenly freed from binding shackles. Perhaps in the near prospect of possible death, questions of more or less money grew small, as if seen through a reversed binocular; perhaps the long night and day had unstrung him; perhaps Evelyn's unconscious confiding wistfulness of look and manner had most to do with the breaking down of his resolution. One way or another, he heard his own voice saying, almost without premeditation—
"If I were not poor—and if you were not rich—I should have asked if you could share that work with me. But as things are—"