"To tell me to go."
It was like a blow. She felt as if she would fall.
"I cannot go unless you send me, Helena—not as things stand now—leaving you here—under these conditions—in a place like this—alone. Therefore tell me to go, Helena."
Tears sprang to her eyes. She thought of all the hopes she had so lately cherished, all the dreams of the day before of love and a new life among quite different scenes—sweet scenes full of the smell of new-cut grass, the rustling of trees, the swish of the scythe, the songs of birds, and the ringing of church bells, instead of this empty and arid wilderness—and then of the ruin, the utter wreck and ruin, that everything was falling to.
"Tell me to go, Helena—tell me," he repeated.
It was crushing. She could not bear it.
"I cannot," she said. "Don't ask me to do such a thing. Just when we were going away, too ... expecting to escape from all this miserable tangle and to be happy at last——"
"But should we be happy, Helena? Say we escaped to Europe, America, Australia, anywhere far enough away, and what I speak of were to come to pass, should we be happy—should we?"
"We should be together at all events, and we should be able to love each other——"
"But could we love each other with the memory of all that misery—the misery we might have prevented—left here behind us?"