“You are cruel. Don’t you see how terribly I should be wanting you if I did such a thing as that? Oh, promise, promise, that if I ever do it you won’t pass on!”
Wylie laughed bitterly. “What a queer girl you are!” he said. “Your eyes are full of tears at the mere thought that you may want me some day, and yet you won’t take me now.”
“I was feeling it as if it was in a book,” murmured Zoe shamefacedly. “But you will promise?”
“No, I won’t, because I shouldn’t do it. I shall do my level best to forget you from the day I leave this.”
This was high treason, and cried aloud for condign punishment.
“Can you forget when you like?” asked Zoe incisively.
“No, I wish I could! It won’t be much comfort for me, away in the Soudan, to think of you wandering about the world and getting into all sorts of difficulties.”
“The Soudan? But aren’t you going back to India?”
“No, I am to be lent to the Egyptian Government for special work in the Soudan. That was how I got longer leave.”
He went away abruptly, and Zoe gazed after him with mingled feelings.