'Perhaps never.'
He did not allow himself to look at her face, because he did not dare; but he saw her pick the berries from a red bunch she had pulled, and drop them one by one to the ground. Never had he loved her as he did then in the anguish of farewell, and he called himself a fool for not having gone, as prudence prompted, leaving only a written message behind.
'And is that all you have to say to me, Walter, that you are going to Australia—on the fourteenth, is it?—and that you will never come back?'
'It is all I dare to say,' he answered, nor did he look at her yet, though there was a whimsical, tender little smile on the lovely mouth which might have won his gaze.
'And you are quite determined to go alone?'
'Well, you see,' he began, glad of anything to get on commonplace ground, 'I might get plenty of fellows, but it's an awful bore, unless they happen just to be the right sort.'
'Yes, that is quite true, there are so few nice fellows,' said Gladys innocently. 'Don't you think you might get a nice girl to go with you, if you asked her properly?'
Then Walter flashed a sad, proud look at her—a look which Gladys fearlessly met, and thought at that very moment that she had never seen him look so well, so handsome, so worthy of regard. Sorrow had wrought her perfect work in him, and he had emerged from the shadow of blighted hope and frustrated ambition a gentler, humbler, ay, and a holier man than he had yet been. Suddenly that look of sad, quiet wonder, which had a touch of reproach in it, quite broke Gladys down, and she made no effort to stem the tears which might make him sad or glad, she did not care.
'Gladys,' he began hurriedly, 'it is more than man is fit to bear, to see these tears. If they mean nothing more than a natural regret at parting from one whom circumstances have strangely thrown in your way, perhaps too often, tell me so, and I shall thank you, even for that kindly regret; but if they mean that I may come back some day—worthier, perhaps, than I am to-day'—
'That day will never come,' broke in Gladys quietly. 'But if you will take me to Australia with you, Walter, I am ready to go this very day.'