She drew a long breath and leaned back.
Bayard rowed on for some moments in inscrutable silence. It was too dark to see the expression of his face. When he spoke, it was in a half-articulate, tired way.
“I did not know. Are you coming back?”
“I am going to Campo Bello with the Rollinses,” replied Helen briefly. “I don’t expect to come back again this year.”
“I wonder I had not thought of it,” said Bayard slowly. “I did not,” he added.
“The people will miss you,” he suggested, after a miserable pause.
“Oh, they will get used to that,” said Helen.
“And I?” he asked, in a tone whose anguish smote suddenly upon her ears, like a mortal cry. “What is to become of me?”
“You’ll get used to it, too,” she said, thrusting out her hands in that way she had.
His oars dropped across his knees.