“Did the doctor say you might?”
“Yes, after to-day. I could walk home now without them. I could do a good many things I couldn't do a few minutes ago. Isn't that curious?”
“Very,” she said, avoiding his eyes.
He laughed. She dared not look at him. The excitement and impetus of sheer impulse had carried her this far; now all the sadness of it was clutching hard at her throat and for awhile she could not speak—walking there in her dainty, summer gown beside him, the very incarnation of youth and health, with the sea-tan on wrist and throat, and he, white, hollow-eyed, crippled, limping, at her elbow!
Yet at that very moment his whole frame seemed to glow and his heart clamour with the courage in it, for he was thinking of Plank's words and he knew Plank had spoken the truth. She could not give herself to Quarrier, if he stood firm. His was the stronger will after all; his was the right to interfere, to stop her, to check her, to take her, draw her back—as he had once drawn her from the fascination of destruction when she had swayed out too far over the cliffs at Shotover.
“Do you remember that?” he asked, and spoke of the incident.
“Yes, I remember,” she replied, smiling.
“Doctors say” he continued, “that there is a weak streak in people who are affected by great heights, or who find a dizzy fascination drawing them toward the brink of precipices.”
“Do you mean me?” she asked, amused.
But he continued serenely: “You have seen those pigeons called 'tumbler pigeons' suddenly turn a cart-wheel in mid-air? Scientists say it's not for pleasure they do it; it's because they get dizzy. In other words, they are not perfectly normal.”