"Yes! it has to do with you, with me!" she echoed desperately, "but only we two."
"No!--" he interrupted--"with more than that, surely!"
In the pause which followed, one vision faded in another, and her own wish, that if she ever had a son he might be as this man, came to make her remember Father Ninian's words, "I can wish no better wish for the world!"
But Father Ninian could not have said so to her. She could do better for the world in the other life, the other work. The very self-sacrifice of it attracted her, vague though the sense of that was, as yet.
"Sir Lancelot," she said at last, "I am very sensible of the honour--"
"Don't--for heaven's sake," he interrupted. "That is--excuse me--bunkum."
She felt glad of the faint resentment which came to her aid. "I am, all the same," she continued; "but it is impossible. Perhaps if I did not look forward as I do; perhaps if I only sought happiness; but--" she clasped her hands tightly and the militant look came back to her face--"I am sworn to another work--the noblest work of all--to bring light to those that sit in darkness."
Lance gave an odd little laugh, full of bitterness. "You leave me out in the black night, anyhow," he said.
True enough, in one way, for the quick dusk had closed in around them; but as he spoke, a great white shaft of light like a moon-ray shot, almost as if in denial--widening on its way, from the shadowy stretches beyond the river; shot waveringly, as if uncertain, until, focussing itself full on the verandah, it turned the dusk to day.
"The search-light!" cried Mrs. Smith, clapping her daintily gloved little hands. "Eugene will be so pleased. He couldn't positively swallow a mouthful at lunch because, when he thought all was right, something went wrong. That's why he didn't come, Miss Shepherd," she added, for the light had effectually joined the scattered groups into one. "I positively couldn't tear him away, but I made him promise to turn the thing on here if he succeeded. And he has. Isn't it splendid?"