"Shall I not see you again to-morrow evening?" he asked.

"No," I answered. "I must not see you again till I have told my uncle
everything."

"You do not mean for weeks and weeks--till he is well enough to come
home? How _am_ I to live till then!"

"As I shall have to live. But I hope it will be but for a few days at
most. Only, then, it will depend on what my uncle thinks of the thing."

"Will he decide for you what you are to do?"

"Yes--I think so. Perhaps if he were--" I was on the point of saying,
"like your mother," but I stopped in time--or hardly, for I think he saw
what I just saved myself from. It was but the other morning I made the
discovery that, all our life together, John has never once pressed me to
complete a sentence I broke off.

He looked so sorrowful that I was driven to add something.

"I don't think there is much good," I said, "in resolving what you will
or will not do, before the occasion appears, for it may have something in
it you never reckoned on. All I can say is, I will try to do what is
right. I cannot promise anything without knowing what my uncle thinks."

We rose; he took me in his arms for just an instant; and we parted with
the understanding that I was to write to him as soon as I had spoken with
my uncle.