"'Naturally.'
"'I want to get away from Sumner. I have a chance. I could do it.'
"'Tell me about it, Hetty. All I can do, I will.'
"'Things have changed, Harry, since that day we met. I'd got into a sort of despairing state. I took whatever came. Seeing you changed me. I don't know why but it did. Perhaps I was going to change anyhow. But I can't stand being with Sumner any longer. And there's a chance now. I shall want a lot of money—sixty or seventy pounds.'
"I thought. 'That's quite possible, Hetty. If you can wait a week or so. Ten days say.'
"'You see I have a friend, a girl who married a Canadian. She stayed here to have her child when he went home and now she goes out to him. She's been ill; she's not very strong and she doesn't want to face the voyage alone. It would be easy for me to get out there with her as her cousin and companion. If I had an outfit—— We've discussed it all. She knows someone who could manage about a passport for me. In my maiden name. That's the scheme. I could have my outfit sent to her place. I could slip away.'
"'You'd take another name? Begin again over there?'
"'Yes....'
"I sat considering this project. It pleased me. 'There need be no trouble about the money,' I said.
"'I can't go on living with Sumner. You never saw him. You don't know what he's like.'