"But how did you know—?"
"How do you know the sun has risen, dear? How did that poor devil that was tearing himself in the tombs know that he need fear no more when Christ spoke to him? How did the blind man know he could see? I just don't know, but it happened. And Marcella, do you know what I did? Lord—it was awful. I cried like anything, and asked him to give you back to me. It came to me like a flash that I'd no right to you, that you and he were much righter for each other. But I just couldn't spare you. More selfishness! And it seemed I'd such a lot to make up to you. He said: 'Are you sure you can take care of her now, Louis?' I laughed. It seemed such cool, calm impudence the way our positions were reversed. He laughed too, and said: 'Queer how we still look upon women as goods and chattels, isn't it?'"
"You didn't seem to take me into account much," she said.
"Kraill answered for you in the surest possible way. And then we started to come back to you. He said an astonishing thing on the way back—asked me if I'd read a book on 'Dreams,' by a German chap named Freud. I said I left dreams and 'Old Moore's Almanac' to housemaids and old ladies. He laughed, and we talked about dreams. He told me some of his—rather racy ones. I told him lots of mine—those horrors I used to have, and all that. And he kept nodding his head, and saying: 'Yes, I thought so.' I've often wondered what he was getting at, or if he wasn't getting at anything at all, but just simply changing a difficult subject—like when he asked you to make that tea."
"So that's that," he said at last, and talked of England. Presently she surprised him by saying that she very much wanted to go to Sydney.
"Want to test me among pubs, old lady? Well—I am armed so strong in honesty that dangers are to me indifferent! I can't help swanking bits from 'Julius Caesar,' you know—my only Shakespeare play! But it'll be great to go to Sydney. Only—what are we going for? Shopping?"
She evaded his question, and in a flash he thought he saw the reason for the journey and became very tender and considerate of her. They made plans immediately; he was like a child being taken out for the day. He kept telling her how delightful it was not to be kept on a lead; and she could have told him how delightful it was not to be at the controlling end of a lead.
They left Andrew with Mrs. Twist; Marcella was very quiet during the drive in to Cook's Wall, though for some moments she was almost hysterically gay. Just beyond the station was a gang of navvies and a camp; the railway was pushing on to Klondyke; great Irishmen and navvies from all parts of Australia, drawn by the phenomenal pay, sweated and toiled under the blazing sun making the railway cutting. The sound of rumbling explosions came to them as the rocks were blasted: she watched the men running back with picks over their shoulders; she loved to see their enormous bull-like strength as they quarried the great boulders.
They stayed at Mrs. King's, and went to a theatre the first night. Louis grew more hungry for England every moment as he came into touch with civilization. Marcella sat in a dream; the music that would once have delighted her to ecstasy was muted; the people were things moving without life or meaning; she answered Louis every time he spoke to her, but her mind was drawn in upon itself by a gnawing anxiety.
The next day, leaving Louis to his own resources, she and Mrs. King went out.