'My plans about Gloria?'
'Yes; I mean your plans about Gloria.'
'Oh, no; I have not much evidence to offer. You see, I can only give the police a clue—I can't do more than that. I have been to the inquest and have told that I remember the crimes of these men and their names, but I cannot identify either of the men personally. As soon as I get out to Gloria I shall make it all clear. But until then I can only put the police here on the track.'
'Then you are going?' she asked in pathetic tone. The truth is, that she was not much thinking about the chances of justice being done to the murderers—even to the murderers of poor Soame Rivers. She was thinking of Ericson's going away.
'Yes, I am going,' he said. 'My duty and my destiny—if I may speak in that grandiose sort of style—call me that way.'
'I know it,' Helena said; 'I would not have it otherwise.'
'And I know that,' he replied tenderly, 'because I know you, Helena—and I know what a mind and what a heart you have. Do you think it costs me no pang to leave you?' She looked up at him amazed, and then let her eyes droop. Her courage had all gone. If the women who constantly kept saying that she was forward with men could only have seen her now!
'Are you really sorry to leave me?' she asked at last. 'Shall you miss me when you go?'
'Am I sorry to leave you? Shall I miss you when I go? Do you really not guess how dear you are to me, how I love your companionship—and you—you—you!'
'Oh, I did not know it,' she said. 'But I do know——'. She could not get on.