‘It is nothing to me,’ was the cold, piteous answer.
‘He hadn’t his obstinate look at all,—when he saw me he looked suddenly as if he was going to cry, then he turned round and walked up the road again quickly.’
Dot saw his face, the quick softening of his mouth and eyes. She could hear his very footsteps going away.
‘I shall never forgive him while I live,’ she said, but she had crept round to the chair in the dim corner and was feeling for her mother’s arms.
[p 143]
]They drew her down, down,—two women were rocking and crying just out of the reach of the lamplight.
Half an hour later they were hurrying down the hill to the cottage. Dot’s eyes were tender, the great peace of forgiving was in her heart; she was going to her husband, the one man in the world who was all her own and God-given,—between them what question could there be of pride?
Two hundred yards from the gate she stopped, there was a fallen tree worn smooth with years of sitting upon.
‘Wait here, little mother,’ she said; ‘let me go alone. Then we will come back and fetch you.’
She pressed on by herself, a tender smile parted her lips. Larrie thin and sleepless! Larrie aching for the touch of her hand—Larrie whose love was so desperate he could not help being cruel!
She crushed herself through the broken palings at the bottom of the bush paddock, then she crept along in the shadow of the [p 144] ]trees, up through the garden till voices floated down to her and stopped her. Laughter came from the verandah and smoke, and there were two decanters on a little table, with a flickering lamp.