‘It is very late,’ he put back the blind and disclosed the grey struggling dawn. ‘It is four o’clock, to-morrow will do.’
But she sat down on the sofa where the green cushion was quite dry again.
‘If you have anything to say, say it now,’ she said, ‘it is too late for bed now, what is it you are going to do?’
There was a curious look of suffering on his face and in his eyes.
‘I think I had better go away,’ he said.
Dot only stared at him.
‘There seems no other way, I have thought of everything; there is nothing else left.’
‘You mean separate?’ she asked.
He nodded. She bit her lip, but was surprised to find how easily she kept calm. She waited for him to continue.
‘You could stay here—it needn’t be talked [p 117] ]of, your mother would look after you. I’ll go to Melbourne or Coolgardie or somewhere.’