"No, I'm only afraid of your taking your hand away." "Then listen. I want you to work as we are doing until you come of age, then I want you to go to Cambridge, as I've often told you, but after that--I want you to make a home with me." "Elizabeth!" "Yes, I have a little money put by, not very much, but enough, and I want you to come to London and live there with me. We could jog along somehow; I'd get a job while you studied at the hospital; we'd have a little flat together, and be free and very happy. I've wanted to say this to you for some time and to-day somehow it's all come out; it had to get said sooner or later. Joan, I can't stand Seabourne for many more years, and yet as long as you're here I can't get away. I tell you there are times when I could dash myself to bits on the respectable mud-coloured wall of our house, when I could lay a trail of gunpowder down the middle of the High Street and set light to the fuse, when I could hurl Ralph's woollen socks in his face and pull down the plush curtains and stamp on them, when I could throw all the things out of the study window, one by one, at the heads of the people on the parade, when I could--oh, Joan!--when I could swim a long way out to sea and never come back; I nearly did that once, and then I thought of you and I came back, and here I am. But how long will you make me stay here, Joan? How long shall I have to endure the sight of you growing weaker instead of stronger, as you mature, and some day perhaps the sight of you growing old and empty and utterly meaningless, with all the life and blood sucked out of you by this detestable place, when we might get free and hustle along with life, when we might be purposeful and tired and happy because we mean something." Joan got up. "Listen," she said. "When I'm twenty-one I _will_ go to Cambridge and after that I shall come to you in London; we'll find a little flat and be very happy, Elizabeth." Elizabeth looked straight into her eyes with a cold, searching scrutiny. "Is that a promise, Joan?" "Yes, it's a promise." 2