“I can’t,” she repeated. “I can’t leave it all.”
(‘Ah! make me go!’ that other whispered.)
He turned away from her and looked back at the rocks.
“You care for all this more than for me.”
“You know that that is not true. I care for you more than anyone or anything in the world. But these have all been fancies of yours, Phil. In six months time—” she broke off.
(‘Force me, compel me to go with you,’ the other woman whispered to him. But he did not hear.)
“Yes. We’ll go back,” he said.
They were silent. Suddenly he gripped her shoulder, and they both turned and looked behind them.
“I thought I heard someone laugh,” he whispered.
She rose, then before they moved away, put her arm round him with a close, maternal gesture that she had never used to him before.