“Away to the solitudes?” she asked quickly.
“Possibly,” I said; “but that is the point about yachting. You set out for nowhere, and if you don’t like it, you come back again.”
“And you positively don’t know where you are going?”
“I positively don’t know where I am going.”
“But I do,” she said. “You are going to follow my father.”
I had never been so amazed in my life. To say that I was astonished would be to misrepresent the truth. I knew already that she suspected me; but this challenge—from a mere child—this outspoken defiance, it passed all comprehension.
“Why should I follow your father?” I asked her as quickly.
“I do not know, Dr. Fabos. But you are following him. You suspect him, and you wish to do us an injury.”
“My dear child,” I said, “God forbid that I should do any man an injury. You do not mean what you say. The same cleverness which prompts this tells you also that anything I may be doing is right and proper to do—and should be done. May we not start from that?”
I turned about and faced her. We had come almost to the water’s edge by this time. The lazy waves were rolling at our feet—the waves of that sea I purposed to cross in quest of a truth which should astonish the world. The hour was momentous to both our lives. We knew it so to be and did not flinch from it.