I almost started at the idea, and had not replied before he resumed:
"It would be something for her to recur to with delight all the rest of her life."
"It would indeed. But it is impossible."
"I do not think so—if you would allow me the honour to assist you. I think we could do it perfectly between us."
I was again silent for a while. Looking down on the way we had come, it seemed an almost dreadful undertaking. Percivale spoke again.
"As we shall come here to-morrow, we need not explore the place now. Shall we go down at once and observe the whole path, with a view to the practicability of carrying her up?"
"There can be no objection to that," I answered, as a little hope, and courage with it, began to dawn in my heart. "But you must allow it does not look very practicable."
"Perhaps it would seem more so to you, if you had come up with the idea in your head all the way, as I did. Any path seems more difficult in looking back than at the time when the difficulties themselves have to be met and overcome."
"Yes, but then you must remember that we have to take the way back whether we will or no, if we once take the way forward."
"True; and now I will go down with the descent in my head as well as under my feet."