"But don't you _want_ to go?" she protested, frowning. "I'm just dying
to go. It's such adventure."

"Adventure! Perhaps it is, for you. It depends on how much money you've
got."

"Ten pounds," she said guilelessly.

"Do you know what they're allowing me? A miserable pound a week! Doled
out once a week, mind you! Little Louis must toddle up to the General
Post Office in Sydney every English mail day, and if he says 'please'
very nicely they'll give him a letter from his mother. It's always from
his mother. His father 'cannot trust himself to write in a Christian
spirit,' he says. In the letter is a pound order. That's to keep body
and soul together."

In his passion of self-pity he forgot to stammer; his words tumbled out
wildly, between sobbing catches of his breath.

"But who gives you the pound?"

"The Pater, I tell you--so long as I stop there I'm assured of a pound a
week! If I come any nearer to England the money stops. They probably
hope I'll commit suicide and save them the expense of the pound a week.
It'll even save them the expense of a funeral and buying mourning, won't
it? I'll do it in Sydney, you see."

"But I never heard of such a funny thing in my life! Paid to keep away
from home! What's the matter with you? What have you done? It's like the
lepers in the Bible."