He did not speak at once, for his ears, keener than hers, were listening to a confused sound of voices coming from the shore. At length he spoke firmly: "Yes, I'm going to reform, but it's on one condition."
Her eyes mutely asked a question, and he replied: "That you marry him," pointing to the inner room, "if he lives."
"He will live, but I—I cannot tell him, Edward," she sadly said.
"He knows."
"He knows! Did you dare to tell him?" It was the lover, not the sister, who spoke then.
"Yes. And he knows also that I'm going to reform—that I'm going away."
Her face was hid in her hand. "And I kept it from him five-and-twenty years! . . . Where are you going, Edward?"
"To the Farewell Islands," he slowly replied.
And she, thinking he meant some island group in the Pacific, tearfully inquired: "Are they far away?"
"Yes, very far away, my girl."