"Will she trust him to take care of her?" he asked her softly. And after a moment: "Will she?" for she had not answered a word. She said "Yes" very faintly, with the faintness of happiness.
"It is a good girl," he said caressingly, "... and she shall be well taken care of." He pressed confidence into that supple trunk of arm. "But she must try and be as kind to me as she can ... now." He waited to give her the opportunity of asking him, Why? but she did not. She was in the ethereal state that takes everything for granted. "Because ... well ... because she did n't believe me this afternoon. She thought I was only telling tarradiddles. Now did n't she? But it was n't tarradiddles at all, at all. It was something far worse than tarradiddles."
He felt the sudden thrill of awakening alarm run through her; but still she said no word, asked no questions, left everything to him.
"What does the good little girl say?" he asked her—oh, so lightly! With his hand on her arm, with the pain of parting quite merged in the warm consolatory current of their common blood, penance seemed a light, a meaningless thing. What was departure but a delightful occasion for kisses and comfort ... till the dread moment came? The good little girl trembled a little, he thought, but said nothing. "Does n't she say she 's sorry? Come, come. Surely she 's not such a heartless little girl as not to say she 's sorry?"
This time the girl twisted a swift, startled face of inquiry towards his own half-bantering smile.
"I thought..." she began, and stopped with the abruptness of fear.
"Yes, yes; I know you did," he laughed. "I told you so. You thought I was just telling a great big fib, did n't you? ... because I did n't want to bind myself to the ordeal of any more harmonium."
"You don't mean ... you 're going away?"
"Should you be very sorry?" he asked her.
She did not speak, but seemed, in the moonlight, to be looking at him as though she were trying to absorb his meaning, to see if there were any other sense below the surface of his words.