"Shall I help you to count it?"
She often did so.
They counted the flimsy dirty paper-money together, and put it all back into the various labelled bags.
"It comes right," he said.
Suddenly she said, "But you can't pay it into the bank to-morrow if you go to ——."
"I know," he said looking at her; "that is what I have been thinking of ever since I heard Philip's news. I don't like leaving you with all this money in the house; but I must."
She was silent. She was not frightened for herself, but it was State money, not their own. She was not nervous as he was, but she had always shared with him a certain dread of those bulging bags, and had always been thankful to see him return safe—he never went twice by the same track—after paying the money in. In those wild days, when men went armed, with their lives in their hands, it was not well to be known to have large sums about you.
He looked at the bags, frowning.
"I am not afraid," she said.
"There is no real need to be," he said after a moment. "When I leave to-morrow morning, it will be thought I have gone to pay it in. Still——"