"Your decision will be mine."
He spoke so steadily that she would fain have believed in his indifference as to the result. But the art of self-deception was not one of her accomplishments. She suppressed a sigh.
"Dear, there is only one decision possible. But for me you might never have put your hand to that plough. It was the one good that came to you through my crowning act of folly; and I'll not undo it, whatever it may mean—for me."
He thanked her with his eyes; and the mute homage in them was dearer to her than a score of kisses. When he tried to speak, she forestalled him.
"You have said it all, Eldred. I understand. I only want—more facts.
Is it Gilgit? And when?"
"Next year, I'm afraid. They want us to re-establish the Agency—Travers and myself. I was up there, you see, before I found you again. We should be quite alone, at the start, with just a doctor and our Kashmiri soldiers."
"And I—it would be impossible?"
He pressed her hands.
"For the first few years—certainly. Everything would be raw; and the work incessant and absorbing. But later on, who can tell? We might see what could be done."
"And the nearest I could get to you, so as to live more or less within reach?"