, but that they had inspired her with a dreadful presentiment of
mountainous travel for her mind before it could reach Deronda's. Great ideas in
general which she had attributed to him seemed to make no great practical
difference, and were not formidable in the same way as these
mysteriously-shadowed particular ideas. He could not quite divine what was going
on within her; he could only seek the least abrupt path of disclosure.
    »That is an object,« he said, after a moment, »which will by-and-by force me
to leave England for some time - for some years. I have purposes which will take
me to the East.«
    Here was something clearer, but all the more immediately agitating.
Gwendolen's lip began to tremble. »But you will come back?« she said, tasting
her own tears as they fell, before she thought of drying them.
    Deronda could not sit still. He rose, and went to prop himself against the
corner of the mantelpiece, at a different angle from her face. But when she had
pressed her handkerchief against her cheeks, she turned and looked up at him,
awaiting an answer.
    »If I live,« said Deronda - »some time.«
    They were both silent. He could not persuade himself to say more unless she
led up to it by a question; and she was apparently meditating something that she
had to say.
    »What are you going to do?« she asked, at last, very timidly. »Can I
understand the ideas, or am I too ignorant?«
    »I am going to the East to become better acquainted with the condition of my
race in various countries there,« said Deronda, gently - anxious to be as
explanatory as he could on what was the impersonal part of their separateness
from each other. »The idea that I am possessed with is that of restoring a
political existence to my people, making them a nation again, giving them a
national centre, such as the English have, though they too are scattered over
the face of the globe. That is a task which presents itself to me as a duty: I
am resolved to begin it, however feebly. I am resolved to devote my life to it.
At the least, I may awaken a movement in other minds, such as has been awakened
in my own.«
    There was a long silence between them. The world seemed getting larger round
poor Gwendolen, and she more solitary and helpless in the midst. The thought
that he might come back after going to the