“Thinking hard, that is all.”
“What will you do?” she asked him, presently.
“Carry this through to the death,” he said, with a tightening of the jaw.
She looked over the face in her lap and away towards the sea, where gulls were sweeping like pure spirits over the blue. The transcendent egotism of the moment had made them both blind to the world that was beyond the mere ken of their senses. They were both happy in a desperate, headlong fashion. Ophelia still had Mrs. Marjoy’s letter crumpled in one hand.
“Jim, you are a man,” she said, “and no weakling. I am glad of that, for I will trust all to you. Yes, it must be so; we cannot hesitate.”
He opened his eyes and looked up at her with an expression of strenuous eagerness.
“I shall go to town to-night,” he said.
“So soon!”
“Well—”
“To-morrow.”