pull the house down; but it would not fall. Moreover, she could not
understand her husband, and she was afraid. Then the folly of her
useless truthfulness struck her, and she was ashamed to write to
Kurrell, saying, 'I have gone mad and told everything. My husband
says that I am free to elope with you. Get a dƒk for Thursday, and
we will fly after dinner.' There was a cold-bloodedness about that
procedure which did not appeal to her. So she sat still in her own
house and thought.

At dinner-time Boulte came back from his walk, white and worn
and haggard, and the woman was touched at his distress. As the
evening wore on she muttered some expression of sorrow,
something approaching to contrition. Boulte came out of a brown
study and said, 'Oh, that! I wasn't thinking about that. By the way,
what does Kurrell say to the elopement?'

'I haven't seen him,' said Mrs. Boulte. 'Good God, is that all?'

But Boulte was not listening and her sentence ended in a gulp.

The next day brought no comfort to Mrs. Boulte, for Kurrell did
not appear, and the new lift that she, in the five minutes' madness
of the previous evening, had hoped to build out of the ruins of the
old, seemed to be no nearer.

Boulte ate his breakfast, advised her to see her Arab pony fed in
the verandah, and went out. The morning wore through, and at
mid-day the tension became unendurable. Mrs. Boulte could not
cry. She had finished her crying in the night, and now she did not
want to be left alone. Perhaps the Vansuythen Woman would talk