"I think I ought to stay," she remarked at last.
"Really I cannot see the necessity. The presence of Mr. Swanland's clerk of course relieves you from all real responsibility."
"I suppose so—but still—"
"But still what?"
"When we leave Homewood we shall leave it for good. I feel that. I mean we shall leave it altogether, whether for good or for ill, whichever may befall."
"If you were to go from home for a few weeks, you would look at your position much more cheerfully," answered Mr. Leigh, who was not himself utterly unacquainted with some of the moods and tenses of a woman's mind.
"Mr. Benning said we should be quite free to go when once the meeting of creditors was over," Mrs. Mortomley remarked.
"That was an absurd observation," returned Mr. Leigh, "for you are perfectly free to go now."
"Yes; but he meant for ever," Dolly explained. "I am not mistaken," she went on. "He said they could get a manager, that my husband's health was broken, and that the best thing we could do was to go to some pretty seaside place and live there comfortably upon my money."