But Jim did not at once tell her the other reason for his visit. Instead he sat thinking of many things, and all his thoughts were centred round her. He was thinking the honest thoughts of a man who loves a woman so well that he shrinks from offering her so little of worldly goods as he possesses. He had come there, as a man will come, to hover round and burn his fingers at the fire which he has not the courage to turn his back upon. He had come there to tell her that he was going away, even as Peter was going––going away to make one more of those many starts which it had been his lot to make in the past.
“Well?” Eve faced him with smiling eyes. She understood that his second reason was troubling him, and she wanted to encourage him.
He shook his head.
“It isn’t a scrap ‘well,’” he said, with an attempt at a lightness he did not feel.
“Nothing can be so bad, as––as some things,” she said. Her eyes had become serious again. She was thinking of those two short months ago.
“No,” he breathed, with a sigh. “I––I suppose not.” Then with a desperate effort he blurted out his resolve. “I’m going away, too,” he said clumsily.
His announcement cost him more than he knew. But Eve showed not the least bit of astonishment.
“I knew you would,” she said. Then she added, as though following out a thought which had been hers for a long time, “You see there are some things nobody can put up with––for long. Barnriff, for instance, when it turns against you.”
Jim nodded. Her understanding delighted him, and he went on more easily.