“I didn’t! I couldn’t! To leave you!”
“I’ll take my oath of it. You asked me if that was why I was crying.”
“Of course! I knew it! It was because you were crying that I was glad—to think you were so sorry to lose me.”
“Well, this is startling and gratifying, I must say, after all my heroic determination to make you glad that you were alive, after all.”
“Did you determine to make me glad I was alive, Nym? What were you going to do? Tell me.”
“Why, I thought I would take you home—to England, I mean—by sea, before the winter gales begin, and that we would stay at Llandiarmid for a bit. I meant to get a low pony-carriage to drive you about in, and I thought we would spend whole days in the woods as long as it was warm enough. You don’t know what the Llandiarmid woods are in autumn, Nell—how black the yew-trees look among the oaks and beeches on the river-cliff, and how pretty the golden birches are against the Scotch firs. And I thought we would take long drives, and stop at the farmhouses, and the tenants’ wives would come out to be introduced to you, and tell you what a wretch of a husband you had got hold of, and ask if you wouldn’t have a sup of new milk to bring some colour into your cheeks. And my mother would pet you, of course, and get so fond of you that I should have to forbid your going into the village with her, lest I should see nothing of you myself. And then perhaps you might be well enough about the end of November to come up to Southumberland with me, if the General Election was on then—not to canvass, of course, but just to go about with me and attract votes by looking so miserably pale, as if I ill-treated you, you know. That’s just what I thought, you see.”
“And now?” asked Helene breathlessly, smiling and flushing.
“Oh, now it’s unnecessary, isn’t it?”
“Couldn’t you pretend it was necessary, Nym?”
“Oh, you like the programme, do you? Then we will pretend it’s necessary, Nell. Every evening I shall ask you, ‘Are you glad yet that you’re alive?’ and you will be hard-hearted, and say, ‘Not yet.’”