He had to leave to-morrow at two, though, having to sail the same night, but of course it would be luck to go farther south than Charcot and make another attack on the Antarctic night.
I could see that life was full of faith and hope and all good things for him, and remembering some episodes of the past I said:
"So you are going 'asploring' in earnest at last?"
"At last," he answered, and we looked into each other's eyes and laughed as we stood together on the church steps, with little tender waves of feeling from our childhood sweeping to our feet.
"And you?" he said. "You look just the same. I knew you instantly. Yet you are changed too. So grown and so . . . so wonderfully. . . ."
I knew what he meant to say, and being too much of a child to pretend not to know, and too much of a woman (notwithstanding my nun-like impulses) not to find joy in it, I said I was glad.
"You've left the Convent, I see. When did that happen?"
I told him three weeks ago—that my father had come for me and we were going back to Ellan.
"And then? What are you going to do then?" he asked.
For a moment I felt ashamed to answer, but at last I told him that I was going home to be married.