"Give me a straight answer!" cried Ralph. "Do you love me?"
There was silence for the space of time between the opening and the closing of a door. Ralph hung upon her answer with all his faculties suspended. He heard her draw a steadying breath.
"No!" she said.
The soft clearness with which she produced it was horribly convincing. So strong a spell had her honesty cast upon him, that he never questioned her denial. He fell back into his own canoe, and the two drifted a little apart. He remained motionless on his knees, his hands grasping the gunwales mechanically. His world was tumbling around his ears. The moonlight was flat and garish. As yet he felt no pain; only an immeasurable disgust of living.
Nahnya became alarmed by his silence. "What are you thinking?" she asked sharply.
With an immense effort Ralph pulled himself together. "It's all right," his lips said. The voice that issued from them was strange in his ears. "I have been a fool, that's all. You are not to blame in any way."
He picked up his paddle like an automaton. "Let us go back," he said, in the same quiet, stiff voice.
Later he said: "I will go away just as soon as I can leave your mother."
"I can dress her arm," Nahnya said, "or Ahahweh can. I have teach her."
"All right," Ralph said. "I'll start back to-morrow."