He did not answer her, for his mind was deeply troubled.
‘I think I can manage if you leave it to me,’ she said. He held her closer. ‘What does it matter if we take nothing away? Only just a few clothes for me and the children. I can leave everything tidy, just as it was when he went.’ She hesitated, for she remembered the tea-set that she had pawned in Shrewsbury. He would miss that. Then she realised, thankfully, that it was her wedding present, not his.
‘Nearly everything,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think it’s better that we should start with nothing? In lodgings at first. Won’t it be strange?’ She laughed softly. ‘And not a soul to know! It’s beginning life all over again. Oh, Abner, my love!’
So she spoke, confidently, at times almost gaily, and he made believe that he was listening to her, humouring her childishness.
‘And isn’t it lucky,’ she said, ‘that Mr Drew’s working up at the Pentre. You won’t need to go there yourself. If you get up early you can catch him before he goes and send up a message to the farm. It isn’t as if it mattered your breaking your word to Mr Williams. People must make allowances, mustn’t they?’
He did not answer her, and she became conscious of his brooding.
‘Abner! What’s up with you? Tell me! You’re frightening me. Abner!’
‘We can’t go to-morrow,’ he said.
‘But, Abner, we must, we must! Two or three days, he said. He might even be a day early. He might come to-morrow. Think of it, Abner! I should die.’
‘If George is coming home like that we can’t go.’