Phyl thought of Mr. Hennessy sitting in his gloomy office in gloomy Dublin.
"I don't know," said poor Phyl, "I never could understand you quite, but now that I am in trouble you seem a friend--I'm miserable--but there's no use having friends here. It only makes it the worse having to go."
"Do you remember the day I asked you to run off to Florida with me," said Silas, "and leave this damned place? It's no good for any one here and you've found it out--the place is all right, it's the people that are wrong."
"You're going to stay here--here with me."
"I am going back to Ireland to-day," said Phyl.
"You are not, you are going to stay here."
She spoke as a person speaks who is half drowsy, and Silas spoke like a person whose mind is half absent. It was the strangest conversation to listen to, knowing their relationship and the point at issue.
"You are going to stay here," he went on. "If I lost you now I'd never find you again. I've been wanting you ever since I saw you that day first in the yard-- D'you remember how we sat on the log together?--you can't tramp all the way back to Charleston-- Come with me and you'll be happy always, all the time and all your life--"
"No," said Phyl, "I mustn't--I can't." Her mind, half dazed by all she had gone through, by the mesmerism of his voice, by the brilliant light of the day, was capable of no real decision on any point. The dark streets of Dublin lay before her, a vague and nightmare vision. To return to Vernons would be only her first step on the return to Ireland, and yet if she did not return to Vernons, where could she go?
Silas's invitation to go with him neither raised her anger nor moved her to consent. Phyl was an absolute Innocent in the ways of the world. No careful mother had sullied her mind with warnings and suggestions, and her mind was by nature unspeculative as to the material side of life.
Instinctively she knew a great deal. How much knowledge lies in the sub-conscious mind is an open question.
They walked on for a bit without speaking and then Silas began again.
"You can't go back all that way. It's absurd. You talk of going off to-day, why, good heavens, it takes time even to start on a journey like that. You have to book your passage in a ship--and how are you to go alone?"