"I—promised I would come some day to see your house, and your surgery," she said, hesitating a little between the words, but speaking firmly nevertheless, "and—I thought I would come to-day."
"What made you come to-day?" he asked, an odd abruptness that almost amounted to roughness, in his voice. "Why to-day, of all days?"
"I—don't know," she answered. "I believe I acted—on impulse. It just came into my head that I must come this morning, and—you know I am rather a creature of impulse—and I came—straight away."
"It is so curious you should have come to-day," he persisted, still with that odd abruptness of voice and manner. "You have come in time to see my boats burnt."
"Your—boats—burnt?" her voice was puzzled; she looked into his face with less of embarrassment, because in some indefinite way she felt that he was more embarrassed than she, and it gave her courage. "Why are you burning boats?"
"Because, as I told you when I came to see you, I am giving up the life here, giving it up altogether, irrevocably, for always. There is to be no turning back."
"No turning back," she repeated softly, her eyes watching the changing expressions on his face. "Why no turning back?"
"Why? Because I have made up my mind to begin a new life, in a new world, and—when I make up my mind a thing must be done, I generally carry it through."
"Ah!" she said. "You generally carry it through?"
"Yes," he spoke almost harshly. "The boats will be burnt to-day—finally burnt."