'Oh, I don't know—somehow or other.' He appeared to think. 'But you said it was you who sent him away.'
'I did.'
'Well, this beats me!'
Elizabeth's strained patience reached the limit.
'Nutty, please!' she said. 'Don't let's talk about it. It's all over now.'
'Yes, but—'
'Nutty, don't! I can't stand it. I'm raw all over. I'm hating myself. Please don't make it worse.'
Nutty looked at her face, and decided not to make it worse. But his anguish demanded some outlet. He found it in soliloquy.
'Just like this for the rest of our lives!' he murmured, taking in the farm-grounds and all that in them stood with one glassy stare of misery. 'Nothing but ghastly bees and sweeping floors and fetching water till we die of old age! That is, if those blighters don't put me in jail for getting that money out of them. How was I to know that it was obtaining money under false pretences? It simply seemed to me a darned good way of collecting a few dollars. I don't see how I'm ever going to pay them back, so I suppose it's prison for me all right.'
Elizabeth had been trying not to listen to him, but without success.