“It will be better soon now,” Ruby said presently. “It is better already.”
“We must try to cure it soon, Ivy.” He had never called her that before. “Rest a little longer, sweetheart, then let me take you back and bathe it while you try to sleep. I cannot take a sick girl the long trail that is waiting for us, and I had hoped that we might start tomorrow.”
“Start—” She dared not say the rest, but he felt the pulse leap in her wrist.
“—for home, dear,” he finished for her. “It is time we went.”
She made no answer. She could not trust her voice, and she was trying desperately to keep some of the joy from her face.
“Are you not rested a little?” Lo asked her before long. “Shall we go, slowly, now?”
“Quite rested—and very much ashamed,” Ruby told him.
Sên lifted her and led her beside him, with his arm about her shoulder.
When they saw the red roofs in the distance, the red up-curling roofs of his birthplace, Ruby drew away from him and faced him.
“Lo,” she asked, “are you sure that you are ready? Is there any hurry? Lo—tell me—do you want to go?”