Aunt Libby joined them again, when by chance they were for a moment alone.
“Tell me again what it was Peter said, Wully!” she begged.
He felt Chirstie shrinking against him.
“He told me in the morning that he had decided to go this time for sure. I told him he was foolish. And I rode over again to give him some advice in the evening.”
Chirstie’s hand stirred nervously within his, and he held it more firmly.
“And did he not say where he was going?”
“He only said west.”
“That’s all he said in his note!” She sighed broken-heartedly. “It’s a strange thing he wouldn’t heed you, Wully!”
Wully gritted his teeth. “He certainly heeded me that time!” he thought grimly to himself. He had already told his aunt those nicely dovetailing lies half a dozen times, and each time he had felt them crushing his wife. He wished his aunt would go away and leave them in peace. After all, her cursed Peter hadn’t got a taste of what he deserved!
Finally the wedding was over. Time, however it drags, must eventually pass. They had driven away together, after he had changed John’s good clothes for a fresh hickory shirt and jeans, leaving Dod at the McLaughlins’. They had had twenty-four hours of the unfathomable luxury of unhindered intimacy. The baby sister was asleep. It was bedtime again.