He turned eagerly toward her then, but she stopped him with a gesture.
“No—stay where you are. I want to solve my problem and—and leave you out of it; you're a complication, pal—when you talk like—like you've just been talking. It makes my conscience wonder whether I'm honest with myself. I've got to leave you out, don't you see? And so, leaving you out, I don't feel that any woman should be expected to go on like I'm doing. You don't know—I couldn't tell you just how—impossible—this marriage of mine has become. The day after—well, yesterday—no, the day before yesterday—he came home and found out—what I'd done. He—I couldn't stay here, after that, so—”
“What did he do?” Kent demanded sharply. “He didn't dare to lay his hands on you—did he? By—”
“Don't swear, Kent—I hear so much of that from him!” Val smiled curiously. “He—he swore at me. I couldn't stay with him, after that—could I, dear?” Whether she really meant to speak that last word or not, it set Kent's blood dancing so that he forgot to urge his question farther. He took two eager steps toward her, and she retreated again behind the table.
“Kent, don't! How can I tell you anything, if you won't be good?” She waited until he was standing rather sulkily by the window again. “Anyway, it doesn't matter now what he has done. I am going to leave him. I'm going to get a divorce. Not even the strictest 'down-east' conscience could demand that I stay. I'm perfectly at ease upon that point. About this last trouble—with the calves—if I could help him, I would, of course. But all I could say would only make matters worse—and I'm a wretched failure at lying. I can help him more, I think, by going away. I feel certain there's going to be trouble over those calves. Fred De Garmo never would have come down here and driven them all away, would he, unless there was going to be trouble?”
“If he came in here and got the calves, it looks as if he meant business, all right.” Kent frowned absently at the white window curtain. “I've seen the time,” he added reflectively, “when I'd be all broke up to have Man get into trouble. We used to be pretty good friends!”
“A year ago it would have broken my heart,” Val sighed. “We do change so! I can't quite understand Why I should feel so indifferent about it now; even the other day it was terrible. But when I felt his fingers—” she stopped guiltily. “He seems a stranger to me now. I don't even hate him so very much. I don't want to meet him, though.”
“Neither do I.” But there was a different meaning in Kent's tone. “So you're going to quit?” He looked at her thoughtfully—“You'll leave your address, I hope!”
“Oh, yes.” Val's voice betrayed some inward trepidation. “I'm not running away; I'm just going.”
“I see.” He sighed, impatient at the restraint she had put upon him. “That don't mean you won't ever come back, does it? Or that the trains are going to quit carrying passengers to your town? Because you can't always keep me outa your 'problem,' let me tell you. Is it against the rules to ask when you're going—and how?”