"Come back," she whispered. "I shall wait for you."
She hesitated.
She touched the lapel of my coat. "I love you NOW," she said, and lifted
her face to mine.
I held her to me and was atremble from top to toe. "O God!" I cried.
"And I must go!"
She slipped from my arms and paused, regarding me. For an instant the
world seemed full of fantastic possibilities.
"Yes, GO!" she said, and vanished and slammed the door upon me, leaving
me alone like a man new fallen from fairyland in the black darkness of
the night.
III
That expedition to Mordet Island stands apart from all the rest of my
life, detached, a piece by itself with an atmosphere of its own. It
would, I suppose, make a book by itself--it has made a fairly voluminous
official report--but so far as this novel of mine goes it is merely an
episode, a contributory experience, and I mean to keep it at that.
Vile weather, an impatient fretting against unbearable slowness
and delay, sea--sickness, general discomfort and humiliating
self--revelation are the master values of these memories.
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