Will you forgive me now?
or will you wait till I come back, if I do come back?
God knows!" He dropped on his knees, and kissed her hand.

"Anyway," he said, "whether I live or whether I die, it will be some consolation to remember that I asked your pardon--and perhaps got it." "Take it, Harry; I can't help forgiving you!" She had done her best to resist him, and she had answered in those merciful words.
The effect was visible, perilously visible, as he rose from his knees.
Her one chance of keeping the distance between them, on which she had been too weak to insist, was not to encourage him by silence.

Abruptly, desperately, she made a commonplace inquiry about his proposed voyage.
"Tell me," she resumed, "where are you going when you leave England ?" "Oh, to find money, dear, if I can--to pick up diamonds, or to hit on a mine of gold, and so forth." The fine observation of Iris detected something not quite easy in his manner, as he made that reply.

He tried to change the subject: she deliberately returned to it.

"Your account of your travelling plans is rather vague," she told him.