He shaded his face with his hand, and looked across at me; and I watched intently a great tree falling in the depths of a burning forest among the embers.
"Is this true, Margery," said John, "that you are going to leave us, and return to London ?" "I am thinking of it," I said pleasantly.
"I thought--I had hoped you were happy with us," he said.
"Yes," I said, "I have been very happy, but I think I want a little change." How my heart ached with the effort of uttering that untruth! I knew that I wanted no change.
"I do not wonder at it," he said after a pause.

"We have made a slave of you.

You are tired of it, and you are going away." He said this bitterly and sorrowfully, shading his eyes still more with his hand.
"No, no," I said, "you must not say that.

I never was so happy in my life as I have been here." I spoke more eagerly than I meant to do, and my voice broke a little in spite of me.

John left his seat and bent down beside me, so that he could see my face, which could not escape him.
"Margery," said he, "I have seen that you have made yourself happy, and I have been sometimes wild enough to hope that you would be content to spend your life amongst us.