He looked at her. "I don't believe you! You are lying for some purpose
of your own. See here, Eve, I don't want to be played with in this way;
you love me, and I worship you; by this time next week you are to be my
wife."
"I must go away from you, then? You won't help me? Where can I go!" She
left him; she walked slowly towards the lake, her head bowed.
He followed her. He had paid no attention to what she was saying;
"feminine complications"--this was all he thought. He was very masterful
with women.
As he came up she turned her head and looked at him. And, by a sort of
inspiration, he divined that the look was a farewell. He caught her, and
none too soon, for, as he touched her, he felt the impulse, the first
forward movement of the spring which would have taken her over the edge,
down to the deep water below.
Carrying her in his arms, close against his breast, he hastened away
from the edge; he went inland for a long distance. Then he stopped,
releasing her. He was extremely pale.
"I believe you now," he said. "All shall be as you like--just as you
like; I will do anything you wish me to do." He seemed to be still
afraid, he watched her anxiously.
She came and put her hands on his shoulders; she lifted her head and
kissed his cheek. It was like the kiss one gives in the chamber of
death.
He did not move, he was holding himself in strict control. But he felt
the misery of her greeting so acutely that moisture rose in his eyes.
She saw it. "Don't be troubled about me," she said. "I didn't want to
die--really, I didn't want to at all. It was only because just at that
moment I could not bear it to have you keep asking me when it was
impossible,--I felt that I must go away; and apart from you, and Cicely
and baby, there seemed no place in the world for me! But now--now I
_want_ to live. Perhaps we shall both live long lives."
"I'm not a woman, you know," said Paul, with a faint smile. "Women do
with make-believes; men can't."
She had left him. "Go now," she said.
He turned to obey. Then he came back. "Eve, can't you tell me your real
reason?"
But her face changed so quickly to its old look of agony that he felt a
pang of regret that he had spoken. "I will never ask you again," he
said.
This was the offering he made her--a great one for Paul Tennant. He went
away.
An hour later she came back to the camp.
"Paul has gone to Potterpins," said Hollis, who was sitting by the fire.
"Told me to give you this." He handed her a note.
It contained but two lines: "I shall come back next week. But send a
note by mail; I want to know if you are contented with me."