"I never thought—it would be so soon. How can we manage about getting away?"
"Getting away—where—in Heaven's name?" Honor rose abruptly. She began to feel as though she were moving in a nightmare.
"Oh, anywhere, away from here. I can't—I won't see him, when he is 'badly cut about' and—half blind. I thought—if you would take me to Murree—Mrs Olliver would be quite glad to look after him. And when he is better, he could come up too. But if—if he is really going to be—blind——"
She closed her eyes and shuddered. No flicker of pity stirred in Honor's heart. It needed all her force of will to control her temper, even for a few minutes longer. But a grim curiosity urged her to discover how far it was possible to travel along such incredible lines of thought and feeling.
"Well, what then?" she demanded coldly.
"Then—I know I could—never come back to him—never!" Theo's wife answered slowly, without raising her eyes, or the look in Honor's face would surely have frozen the words on her lips. "To feel that he was always in the dark would frighten me out of my life. And he would never be left alone, I know. There are so many—others."
But Honor could bear no more. Bending down, she caught hold of Evelyn's shoulders and fairly shook her, as though she would shake her back to life and human feeling. Her blue eyes blazed with indignation.
"How dare you talk like that!" she said in a low note of concentrated wrath. "How dare you think such despicable thoughts! Of course there are others who would give their lives to save him from a minute's pain; and you would let them take your place,—yours? And you can actually expect that I—of all people—will back you up in your desertion of him? No indeed! If you go, you go alone; and I shall never have a word to say to you again. I may be speaking hotly, because I am furiously angry. But I mean every word I say; and my actions will prove it. What's more, I will not let you go. You shall stand by him, however frightened you may be. You talk of—loving him, and you would treat him as I should be ashamed to treat a dog! Evelyn! Evelyn!"—her voice broke suddenly, and tears started to her eyes,—"tell me you did not mean what you said; or I don't know how I am to go on helping you at all!"
There was more of command than of entreaty in the last words, and Evelyn looked up at the transfigured beauty of her face with a slow shivering sigh.