"Don't, Lawrence, you frighten me! When you look like that—Oh, wait a month, only this month, Lawrence, till Bob has gone and we're sure!"
"You want that more than anything else, don't you? You'd give up anything——"
Her eyes grew soft, then stern, and looked clearly into his.
"Anything in the world," she said instantly, "so that mamma could see he was—safe. I am all Bob has. Oh, if he can only——"
"He shall," Dillon assured her stoutly, "he shall, this time!"
And indeed it seemed that he would. He seemed awakened to the strongest effort they had known him to make. His uncle's offer, grimly set for one month from its date, or never, took on for him a superstitious colour of finality. He was convinced that it was his last chance.
"If I'm downed this time, Dill, it's all up," he would say, wearily, as they paced the endless city blocks together, arm in arm, under the night. "If I can keep up till the yacht—how long is it, a week?—then, something tells me I'm all right. I swear it's so. I never felt that before. But if I don't"—he paused ominously. "There's always one way out," he added.
"You will break Helena's heart, then."
"Heart? I don't think she has one. If she had, you'd have had her long ago. Oh, no, I sha'n't. She'll go into that beastly retreat for a while, and then she'll marry that crazy rector-man and go about saving souls. You'll see."
The week was nearly up. The yacht was ready in the harbour. The boy, though, showed the strain, and Dillon, fearful of too much dogging him, and warned by his furtive eyes and narrowed lips, called in Stebbins to the rescue.