I've got my bicycle."
"Then I'll get mine."
She rose. "Don't. I'm going back alone."
"You're not. I'm coming with you. I want to come."
"If you don't mind, I'd rather you didn't--to-night."
"I'll drive you, then. I can't let you go alone."
"But I _want_," she said, "to be alone."
He stood looking at her with a sort of sullen tenderness.
"You're not going to worry about what I told you?"
"You didn't tell me. I knew."
"Then----"
But she persisted.
"No. I shall be all right," she said. "There's a moon."
In the end he let her have her way.
Moon or no moon he saw that it was not his moment.
XXXVII
What Gwenda had to do she did quickly.
She wrote to the third Mrs. Cartaret that night. She told her nothing
except that she wanted to get something to do in London and to get it
as soon as possible, and she asked her stepmother if she could put her
up for a week or two until she got it. And would Mummy mind wiring Yes
or No on Saturday morning?
It was then Thursday night.
She slipped out into the village about midnight to post the letter,
though she knew that it couldn't go one minute before three o'clock on
Friday afternoon.
She had no conscious fear that her will would fail her, but her
instinct was appeased by action.
On Saturday morning Mrs. Cartaret wired: "Delighted. Expect you
Friday. Mummy."
Five intolerable days. They were not more intolerable than the days
that would come after, when the thing she was doing would be every bit
as hard.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187