She would not have believed him. And Jimmie had known that.
Word by word and tone by tone, she made him say it over to her mind's ear and eye, even to the little lift in his shoulder with which he would have ended—And she knew!
Jimmie did not mean that at all. He did not want to go away from her!
"Urgent business!" Love laughed up in her heart. Jimmie and urgent business!
And then the quiet, thinking Augusta came back. This was no caprice, no mere whim of Jimmie's. He had tried to make her believe that he was tired and only wanted escape. He had deliberately tried to hurt her so that she would believe. Jimmie would not have done that without a powerful reason.
And he was gone. Nothing could be more definite than that. If she had seen him packing trunks for a week his going could not have been so convincing. He had simply changed into his everyday street suit and walked out, humming:
"The Priest of the Parish,
"The Clerk and his man
"Went 'round the church yard
"With a red hot brick in his han'."