"You took away his belief. And I ask you to give it him back again."
She walked dully by his side, striving as well as she could to represent to herself the strange words he had used in a form she could accept.
"You do understand, Mary?"
"Isn't it too late?"
Tormenting fears were again upon her.
"It may be. Certainly the doctors think the balance of probability against it. But I firmly hold that such a view is not for those who know this poor sailorman. I cannot help thinking that no one is allowed to get so far along the road in the face of such paralyzing odds without there being still some hope of putting the thing through."
They stood in the middle of the road, looking at each other.
"I ... I think you are right. You understand him so much better than I."
"That we can neither of us believe." He spoke with a queer laugh. "But if I am asking you to give too much, you mustn't blame me. You have always taught me to ask too much." His voice tailed off in the oddest way. "But this time I don't ask for myself."
She was crying. "I was never the woman that you thought me. Or that I thought myself."