"Why that's what the Catholics mean by Immaculate Conception! Of course
it is! Why--it's all Immaculate Conception! How on earth could it,
logically, be anything else?"
She went back, then, and lay down very still. Louis lay white and quiet
in the moonlight.
"You may hurt him, Louis, if I happen to die. Not that I intend to, for
one small instant! You may let him be hungry and cold. But you won't
hurt him inside. I'll see to it that there's strength in him--the
quickening spirit."
Her last sleep in Sydney was dreamless.
CHAPTER XXI
Even the two days' journey in the most uncomfortable train on earth
could not damp their ardour. Most of the time Louis was gay and
unusually chivalrous; at night, tiredness and heat cracked his nerves a
little, making him cross and cynical until, sitting bolt upright on the
wooden seat, she drew his head on her knee and stroked his eyes with
softened fingers till he fell asleep. At the stations where they
alighted to stretch cramped limbs she stayed beside him all the time.
Once, by a specious excuse, he tried to get rid of her, but she saw
through it and stayed beside him. He resented it bitterly.
"Damned schoolmistress," he growled. "Always round me, like a limpet."
In his eyes she read a flash of hate.
"My dear, do you think I want to be a limpet?" she said, "if I don't you
know we'll never catch the train when it starts again.
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