"Well," he said, and paused; "I hunted you away from Melbourne, to make your boy into a strong fellow. And you've done it. I don't want to make rash promises or raise false hopes. But Garth has improved so wonderfully that I cannot see that there is any real reason for you to bury yourselves down here for ever. If you gave him, say, another year of Gippsland, I think you might with perfect safety take him back to Melbourne. You'd have to watch him, of course. But, with an occasional holiday in the country, he would get on quite well."
Tom looked at Aileen, and she at him.
"What do you say?" said each.
The doctor laughed.
"I'm going out to smoke a pipe," he said. "You can talk it over together. But it would be safe to come."
He went out.
"You'd like to go back, dear," Tom said. "You've been most awfully plucky, but I know it hasn't been easy. I'm glad it isn't a life-sentence for you. I was afraid it meant that."
"I don't think I'd be afraid," she said.
"You're never afraid of anything," said Tom.
"I am still afraid, and I always will be, whenever I turn out a pudding!" Aileen said quaintly. "There is always in me a lurking horror that it will be sodden in the middle! And I will be afraid of snakes until I die. But I have given up being afraid of the estate. I like it."