'
'What are you going to do?' said the woman, between her sobs.
'Do! Nothing. What should I do? Kill Kurrell, or send you Home,
or apply for leave to get a divorce? It's two days' d?k into
Narkarra.' He laughed again and went on: 'I'll tell you what you can
do. You can ask Kurrell to dinner tomorrow no, on Thursday, that
will allow you time to pack and you can bolt with him. I give you
my word I won't follow.'
He took up his helmet and went out of the room, and Mrs. Boulte
sat till the moonlight streaked the floor, thinking and thinking and
thinking. She had done her best upon the spur of the moment to
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 d?k 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.
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