"Darling, it will break my heart if you think I am failing you. But, while you have been talking, I have faced the matter out, and--I must tell you at once--I cannot feel it either right or possible to go. I could not be away just now, for seven months. This place must be looked after. Think of the little church we are building in the village; the farms changing tenants this summer; the hundred and one things I, and I only, must settle and arrange. You never see the bailiff; you hardly know the tenants; you do not oversee the workpeople. So you can scarcely judge, dear Ronnie, how important is my presence here; how almost impossible it would be for me suddenly to go completely out of reach. My darling--if you keep to it, if you really intend to go, we must face the fact that it will mean, for us, a long parting." The tension of suspense held the stillness of the room. Then: "It is my profession," said Ronald West, huskily. "It is my career." She moved round and faced him. They stood looking at one another, dumbly. She knew all that was in his mind, and most that was in his heart. He knew nothing of that which filled her mind at the moment, and only partly realised the great, unselfish love for him which filled her heart. He was completely understood. He rested in that fact, without in the least comprehending his own lack of comprehension. Moving close to him, she laid both hands upon his shoulders, hiding her face in silence against his breast. He stroked her soft hair--helplessly, tenderly. With his whole heart he loved her, leaned upon her, needed her. She had done everything for him; been everything to him. But he meant to carry his point. He intended to go to Central Africa, and it was no sort of good pretending he did not. You never pretended with Helen, because she saw through you immediately, and usually told you so. He had not spent a single night away from her since that wonderful day when, calm and radiant, she had moved up the church in presence of an admiring crowd, and taken her place at his side. He was practically unknown then, as a writer. No one but Helen believed in him, or understood what he had it in him to accomplish. Whereas Helen herself was the last representative of an ancient County family, owner of Hollymead Grange, and of a considerable income; courted, admired, sought after. Yet she gave herself to him, in humble tenderness. Helen had a royal way of giving. The very way she throned you in her heart, dropped you on one knee before her footstool. He had fully justified her belief in him; but he well knew how much of his success he owed to her. Their love had taught him lessons, given him ideals which had not been his before.