"I could not help being well here," she answered. "Besides, Alice has been so good and kind to me. I should be ungrateful indeed were I to show no improvement."
But Jim had not brought his sweetheart out on the cliff to discuss his sister's good qualities.
"Helen," he said at last, "is it possible for you to be my wife in a fortnight's time?"
He took her little hand in his and looked into her eyes. The veriest tyro might have seen that the young man was terribly in earnest.
"It might be possible," she said softly, but without looking at him. "Are you quite sure you do wish it?"
"If you talk like that I shall go back to London to-night," he answered. "You know very well that to make you my wife has been my ambition ever since I first saw you."
And then he went on to tell her of his dreams, winding up with this question—"I wonder whether you will like Australia?"
"I shall like any place where you may be," she replied.
Could any young woman say more to her lover than that? At any rate Jim appeared to be satisfied.
On the Monday following he returned to London to learn from the agent that a probable, though unexpected, purchaser had been found for Childerbridge. He proved to be a wealthy American, who was not only prepared to take over the estate at a valuation, but also to purchase the furniture and effects as they stood.