"Yes, dear. For three happy years it has always been 'we,' in everything. We have not been parted for longer than twelve hours at a time, Ronnie. But I fear Central Africa cannot be 'we.' I do not feel that I could go out there with you."
"Helen! Why not? I thought you would be keen on it. I thought you were game to go anywhere!" Amazement and dismay were in his eyes.
She rose slowly, went over to the mantel-piece, moved some little porcelain figures, then put them back again.
When at length she spoke, she steadied her voice with an effort.
"Ronnie dear, Central Africa is not a place for a woman."
"But, my dearest girl, a woman arrives there in my story! She crawls into the long grass with the man she loves, and disappears. Our missionary's bride did it. Where a woman could not go, I must not go for my local colour. Oh, I say, Helen! You won't fail me?"
He walked over to the window, and drummed again, with restless, nervous fingers, upon the In hoc vince pane.
She came behind him, laying her hand on his shoulder.
"Darling, it will break my heart if you think I am failing you. But, while you have been talking, I have faced the matter out, and—I must tell you at once—I cannot feel it either right or possible to go. I could not be away just now, for seven months. This place must be looked after. Think of the little church we are building in the village; the farms changing tenants this summer; the hundred and one things I, and I only, must settle and arrange. You never see the bailiff; you hardly know the tenants; you do not oversee the workpeople. So you can scarcely judge, dear Ronnie, how important is my presence here; how almost impossible it would be for me suddenly to go completely out of reach. My darling—if you keep to it, if you really intend to go, we must face the fact that it will mean, for us, a long parting."
The tension of suspense held the stillness of the room.