"No," he said at last. "I don't suppose we could. Whatever it's like I've
got to go through with it."

He didn't stay that night.


She was crouching on the floor beside her father, her arm thrown across
his knees. Her mother had left them there.

"Papa--do you know?"

"Your mother told me.... You've done the right thing."

"You don't think I've been cruel? He said I didn't think of him."

"Oh, no, you couldn't do anything else."

She couldn't. She couldn't. It was no use thinking about him. Yet night
after night, for weeks and months, she thought, and cried herself to
sleep.

By day she suffered from Lizzie's sharp eyes and Sarah's brooding pity and
Connie Pennefather's callous, married stare. Only with her father and
mother she had peace.



VI