“These things I speak of are the things that will meet the casual eye; but in our sight they will have a very different meaning.
“Eve,” he said, more vehemently, “a whole chapter in my life has been closed to-night, and my first instinct is to shut the book and throw it away. But I'm thinking of you. Remember, I'm thinking of you! Whatever the trial, whatever the difficulty, no harm shall come to you. You have my word for that!
“I'll return with you now to Grosvenor Square; I'll remain there till a reasonable excuse can be given for Chilcote's going abroad; I will avoid Fraide, I will cut politics—whatever the cost; then, at the first reasonable moment, I will do what I would do now, to-night if it were possible. I'll go away, start afresh; do in another country what I have done in this.”
There was a long silence; then Eve turned to him. The apathy of a moment before had left her face. “In another country?” she repeated. “In another country?”
“Yes; a fresh career in a fresh country. Something clean to offer you. I'm not too old to do what other men have done.”
He paused, and for a moment Eve looked ahead at the gleaming chain of lamps; then, still very slowly, she brought her glance back again. “No,” she said very slowly. “You are not too old. But there are times when age—and things like age—are not the real consideration. It seems to me that your own inclination, your own individual sense of right and wrong, has nothing to do with the present moment. The question is whether you are justified in going away”—she paused, her eyes fixed steadily upon his—“whether you are free to go away, and make a new life—whether it is ever justifiable to follow a phantom light when—when there's a lantern waiting to be carried.” Her breath caught; she drew away from him, frightened and elated by her own words.
Loder turned to her sharply. “Eve!” he exclaimed; then his tone changed. “You don't know what you're saying,” he added, quickly; “you don't understand what you're saying.”
Eve leaned forward again. “Yes,” she said, slowly, “I do understand.” Her voice was controlled, her manner convinced. She was no longer the girl conquered by strength greater than her own: she was the woman strenuously demanding her right to individual happiness.
“I understand it all,” she repeated. “I understand every point. It was not Chance that made you change your identity, that made you care for me, that brought about—his death. I don't believe it was Chance; I believe it was something much higher. You are not meant to go away!”
As Loder watched her the remembrance of his first days as Chilcote rose again; the remembrance of how he had been dimly filled with the belief that below her self-possession lay a strength—a depth—uncommon in woman. As he studied her now, the instinctive belief flamed into conviction. “Eve!” he said involuntarily.