"And I sha'n't be in the way, and I sha'n't bore you. They need know nothing of my existence, if you don't wish it, any more than they used. And we shall lead again the dear old life--eh, Lionel?"
"Eh!" repeated he in rather a high key,--"the dear old life!"
"Ah, how happy I was!" said Margaret. "You, whose intervening time has been passed in action, can scarcely imagine how I have looked back on those days,--how eagerly I have longed for the time to come when I might have them again."
"Gad!" said he, "I don't exactly know about my time being passed in action. It's been horribly ghastly and melancholy, and deuced unpleasant, if you mean that."
"Then we will both console ourselves for it now, Lionel, We will forget all the misery we have suffered, and--"
"Y-es!" said he, interrupting her, swinging his leg a little more slowly, and looking quietly up into her face; "I don't exactly follow you in all this."
"You don't follow me?"
"N-no! I scarcely think we can be on the same tack, somehow."
"In what way?"
"In all this about leading again the old life, and living the days over again, and consoling ourselves, and that kind of thing."