"That," he said, sinking his voice—"that's just what I'm coming to; though I hoped I shouldn't tell you. I didn't mean to say anything at all this morning, except that I was going to be a hermit for these next days. But you aren't a chatterbox. The fact is ... last night I believe I stumbled on the secret."
I don't know what I said, but it pleased him. His eyes were full of gentle brilliancy. "Yes, yes," he said. "I knew you'd understand."
Oh, it was good to see him with that light in his face!
And we sat there, with the morning sun shining over us, and just looked gladness at each other. Then I said I thought he must be the happiest man in England.
He half put out his hand, and drew it back. "I am to find that out, too, very soon," he said. The clock downstairs chimed ten. Eric jumped up like a person with a train to catch.
He had taken me into his counsels prematurely like this, he said, because he wanted to feel sure that I wasn't putting any wrong construction on the fact of his burying himself for these next days. "I like to think you are understanding. If I have any good news, I'll come and tell you. If you don't hear, you'll know I don't dare let go my clue even for an hour, except to sleep."
And now he must go.
I went with him as far as the gate.
He walked with head bent, and eyes that saw things hidden from me. Already he was back in the Bungalow.
I felt the misery of being deserted. But I felt, too, the strong intelligence, the iron purpose, in the man. And though I was torn and aching, I was proud. For all my jealousy, as I saw the mouth so firm-set under the red-brown thatch, saw the colour in his face, something reached me, too, of the heat of this passion to find out—something of the absorption of the man of science in his task. Here was the new kind of soldier going to his post.