"You'll go back to him," said Stanley.
"No," replied she, without emphasis or any accent whatever.
"Sure you will," rejoined he. "It's your living. What else can you do?"
"That's what I must find out. Surely there's something else for a woman besides such a married life as mine. I can't and won't go back to my husband. And I can't and won't go to the house at Hanging Rock. Those two things are settled."
"You mean that?"
"Absolutely. And I've got—less than three hundred and fifty dollars in the whole world."
Baird was silent. He was roused from his abstraction by gradual consciousness of an ironical smile on the face of the girl, for she did not look like a married woman. "You are laughing at me. Why?" inquired he.
"I was reading your thoughts."
"You think you've frightened me?"
"Naturally. Isn't a confession such as I made enough to frighten a man? It sounded as though I were getting ready to ask alms."