our fate in our hands," she said.
He smiled slowly.
"You think so?" he said.
"I know it. If you don't come back it will be because you don't want
to--no other reason. It won't be because you can't. It will be
because you don't want to."
"Who told you so?" he asked, with the same cruel smile.
"I know it," she said.
"All right," he answered.
But he still sat with his hands abandoned between his knees.
"So make up your mind," she said.
He sat motionless for a long while: while she undressed and brushed
her hair and went to bed. And still he sat there unmoving, like a
corpse. It was like having some unnatural, doomed, unbearable
presence in the room. She blew out the light, that she need not see
him. But in the darkness it was worse.
At last he stirred--he rose. He came hesitating across to her.
"I'll come back, Allaye," he said quietly. "Be damned to them all."
She heard unspeakable pain in his voice.
"To whom?" she said, sitting up.
He did not answer, but put his arms round her.
"I'll come back, and we'll go to America," he said.
"You'll come back to me," she whispered, in an ecstasy of pain and
relief. It was not her affair, where they should go, so long as he
really returned to her.
"I'll come back," he said.
"Sure?" she whispered, straining him to her.
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