"It's a good three miles to the nearest millpond," I said. "And there isn't a stone in this part of South Carolina. You are all up in the air now, because the situation you are in is so new to you. But you'll get used to it."
"If I don't go mad first."
"Why, Lucy?"
"You don't understand," she cried. "You have never had loving arms to go to when you were in trouble. I've had them and I've lost them. I mean I've lost the power to go to them and find comfort."
A picture of her running to my arms for comfort flashed through my mind, and troubled me to the marrow. And I had from that moment the definite wish to take her in my arms. And in that same moment I realized that those who thought we were too much together were not such meddling fools as I had thought them.
"Lucy," I said, and I hardly recognized my own voice. "Whatever happens, you've a friend who will never fail you."
"I know that," she said, and she held out her two hands, and I took them in mine.
"If you sent for me to the ends of the earth, I would come."
"I know that."
"There is nothing you could ask of me that I wouldn't give."