"I don't know . . . only you're so queer. It's as if I didn't make any difference any more . . . as if you could do without me."
For a moment he turned cross. "That's nonsense! And you know it. I can't help being like this . . . I'll be better later on."
"I don't know."
But he did not try to convince her. He simply sat staring into the shadows of the old room and at last he said, "And then when everything is settled, I want to go back to Africa . . . to Megambo."
"You can't do that, Philip . . . you mustn't. It would be like killing yourself. You can't go back where there's fever." She wanted to cry out wildly, desperately, against the vague, dark force, which she felt closing in about her.
"That's all nonsense," he said. "Doctors don't know everything. I shan't get the fever. I've got to go back. I want to go back there to paint . . . I've got to go back."
"You hated the place. You told me so."
"And you said once that I really liked it. You told me that some day I'd go back. Do you remember the day we were walking . . . a few days after I came home? You were right. I've got to go back. I'm like that queer Englishwoman."
"You won't go . . . leaving me alone."
"It wouldn't be for long . . . a year, maybe."
She did not answer him at once. "A year," she thought. "A year! But that's long enough. Too long. Anything could happen in a year. He might. . . ." Looking at him as he lay back in the
