“Need—need—I think I should sleep—and if I don’t sleep I shall go mad. But, perhaps I shall go mad anyhow. You must not marry me if I am going mad.”
“You won’t go mad.”
“You think not? There is something that shakes all the time. It never stops. It goes on always. I think that is why I don’t sleep. But when I am with you it seems to stop. I don’t know why, but it does seem to stop, just whilst I am with you.”
“It will stop altogether when you get your sleep back.”
“Oh, yes.”
The half-dreamy note went out of his voice, and the note of intimate self-revealing. Elizabeth noticed the change at once.
“When do you go away, and where do you go?” she asked.
“Switzerland, I think. I could get away by the 3rd of April.”
David was trying to think, but his head was very tired. He must go away. He must have a change. They all said that. But it was no use for him to go away if he did not sleep. He must have sleep. But if Elizabeth were with him he would sleep. Elizabeth must come with him. If they were married at once she could come with him, and then he would sleep. But it was so soon. He spoke his thought aloud.
“You wouldn’t marry me first, I suppose? You wouldn’t come with me?”