"A month?"
"Yes, a month."
Both our voices had risen. His became easy and level once more.
"A year, Archie?"
"How can I know that, John?" I tried to meet his quick change of manner. "I think so. I'm very sure of it."
"But you don't know?"
"I can't know."
"And if the very pretty woman on the island came to you in the night and said she had seen hob-goblin eyes in the dark, and was afraid—how long, though you still love her, would you be faithful to Lucy? A man like you, in good health, with an incompletely developed moral sense?"
"We are getting nowhere," I said, determined to keep my temper.
"We are getting to this," said he, "that if a year from today, you and Lucy still love each other, and have been faithful to each other, and still want each other—you shall have each other."