This time he did pause. He got up and stood before the fire. Still Dodo did not look at him.
"Ah, Dodo," he said, "what are you going to ask? There are some things I cannot do."
"It seems to me this love you talk of is a very weak thing," said Dodo. "It always fails, or is in danger of failing, at the critical point. I believe I could do anything for the man I loved. I did not think so once. But I was wrong, as I have been in my marriage."
Dodo paused; but Jack said nothing; it seemed to him as if Dodo had not quite finished.
"Yes," she said; then paused again. "Yes, you are he."
There was a dead silence. For one moment time seemed to Jack to have stopped, and he could have believed that that moment lasted for years—for ever.
"Oh, my God," he murmured, "at last."
He was conscious of Dodo sitting there, with her eyes raised to his, and a smile on her lips. He felt himself bending forward towards her, and he thought she half rose in her chair to receive his embrace.
But the next moment she put out her hand as if to stop him.
"Stay," she said. "Not yet, not yet. There is something first. I will tell you what I have done. I counted on this. I have ordered the carriage after dinner at half-past ten. You and I go in that, and leave by the train. Jack, I am yours—will you come?"