"Marcella," he sobbed, kissing her hands, kneeling beside her desperate in his self-abasement. "I thought I'd killed you."
"You're not much of a doctor if you don't know I'd take much more killing than that," she said. "And I wanted to kill you for a minute, so we're equal."
In a torrent all his explanations came pouring out. He had thought the whisky hunger was killed; he had tried to test his certainty and had failed.
"I got cocky, old girl. I swanked to myself! I thought I'd got it beat and I'd just go and have one whisky at the Station Hotel to satisfy my own conviction. But when I'd had one I couldn't help it. I seemed to be outside myself, watching myself for the first two or three. I was interested. I kept thinking 'I'll tell Marcella she need not be frightened any more. I can drink two or three whiskies and not be a bally Blue Ribboner any more. We need not be banished to the Bush for the rest of our lives to keep me out of danger.' Then I got muddled and quite lost grip. It had a sort of chemical effect, you know. I hated you for keeping me from whisky that was making me feel so fine and jolly again. I felt I'd been a bit of a prig lately. I loved the stationmaster and a few manganese miners who came in. In fact, I just wallowed again. I came home hating you. I didn't come to see you. I came for money. And that's all. The whole thing's hopeless."
"It was my fault this time, Louis. I went to bed and left you. If I'd not been so proud and so huffy I'd have kept you."
"Yes, but only for a time, dear. I saw it all in a flash to-night when you lay there and I thought you were dead. Marcella, no savage would have done that—hurting you just now."
"What rubbish! If you hadn't done it to me I would have done it to you," she said easily.
"Don't you see how hopeless it is? The very first time I go near whisky, I want it. And this happens. I was a madman to-night. It means that we've got to stick here for the rest of our lives. I daren't even go to the store to fetch things for you when you're ill. I have to hide in a hole like a fox when the dogs are after it."
"After all, is it so very horrible here, Louis?" she whispered. "I think it's been heaven. Our Castle, and the clearing—and next month my seeds that Dr. Angus sent will be coming up. And the baby, Louis! Just think of the millions of things we've got!"
But he knew better than she did the torment of his weakness and refused to be comforted. He was near suicide that night; he too had been happy, happier than ever in his tormented, unfriended life before. He had the terrible torture of knowing that it was he who had brought the cloud into their sky; he had the terror before him, with him, of knowing that he would keep on bringing clouds, all the more black because they both so loved the sunshine.