"Ah, our ravine of the brook! Those days are all gone. I wish I were a green hemlock anywhere, with you a magnolia beside me; or better, a climbing rose hanging upon me! If I could take you, Di!"
The pang of the wish was very keen in her; the leap of the will towards impossibilities; but she said nothing and stood quite motionless.
"I cannot come back for you at Christmas, Di."
"Where are you going, Evan."
"Where I would not take you, anyhow. I am under orders to report myself at a post away off on the Indian frontier, a long journey from here; and a rough, wild place never fit for such as you. Of course we young officers are the ones to be sent to such places; unless we happen to have influence at headquarters, which I haven't. But I shall not stay there for ever."
"Must you go just where they send you?"
"Yes," he said with a laugh. "A soldier cannot choose."
"Must you stay as long as they keep you there?"
"Yes, of course. But there is no use in looking at it gloomily, Di. The months will pass, give them time; and years are made of months. The good time will come at last. I'm not the first who has had to bear this sort of thing."
"Will you have to stay years there?"