"You look tired and hungry and sleepy, and I'm going to send you away."
"My dear," he said with a grimace, "I've got to go."
"Give me the credit of sending you."
"I don't want it. Ah! you've no idea what leaving you is like."
"But I know—"
"That's not the same thing."
"It's worse, I believe. Darling one, go away and come back to me, but don't come back until you're well. I want—I want to do without you now—and get it over." Her eyes, close to his, were bright with the vision of things he could not see. "Get it over," she said again, "and then, perhaps, we shall be safe."
He had it in him at that moment to say he would not go because of his own fear for her, but he only took her on his knee and rocked her as though she were a baby on the point of sleep and he proved that, after all, he knew her very well, for when he spoke he said, "I don't think I can go."
She started up. "Have you thought of something?"
"Yes."