“What!” she screamed.
“If I continue this existence with you I shall grow to hate it. I wish to go away for a time.”
“You want to leave me!”
“Unless I go now for a time to try and get over this act of yours, I tell you frankly that I shall leave you altogether.”
“If you will have the decency not to oppose my wishes, I will go away for six or seven weeks, and when I come back we’ll try and take up our life again a little differently. You must be less jealous and exacting and learn to control yourself. I will then try to forget and we’ll try to get on better together. But I must go. My nerves won’t stand it any longer.”
She sobbed, leaning her head on the back of an arm-chair.
“If you agree to this without the slightest objection,” said Nigel, “I will come and join you and the children somewhere in the first week in August. Till then I’m going abroad, but I don’t exactly know where. You shall have my address, and, of course, I shall write. I may possibly go to Venice. I have a friend there.”
She still said nothing, but cried bitterly. She was in despair at the idea of his leaving her, but secretly felt she might have been let off less lightly.
One thing Nigel resolved. He would not let her know he had been forbidden the house. She would be too pleased at having succeeded. But he said: