“I believe in you,” she answered steadfastly.
He drew a deep breath. “At last!”
“I believe in you.”
“You are not saying that only to comfort met”
“No; you know that I am not.”
“To come back—to go on—to face it all.”
“It's the hardest thing and the finest thing—I shall know—I shall always remember.”
As he looked at her he knew that he might kiss her and that she would not have drawn back—but she was not his. He faced it out in that brief moment—all the ignominy, the mockery, the drudgery—the hell that Moffatt's was. Was it really his chance? Was he really in some way a new man, or was it only the passing emotion that moved him? Could he do anything still with his poor old wreck of a soul?
There was a long silence. They had reached Rayner's Point. Here the sea swept, in a great arc to left and right. Sea and sky were very faintly blue. The sun broke the golden bands that bound it, the light flooded the brown earth of the winter fields, the shining mist glittered through the brown wood that hung like a cloud behind them on the horizon, a white gull, breaking the stillness with its cries, swerved past them out to sea.
Perrin drew a deep breath. “If you will help me, I 'll come back,” he said.