"Hudson."
"All right. Will you go now, just as you are? You'd stand a fat chance if you went back and tried to pack up. That thing would batter you to a pulp, wouldn't he?"
She nodded.
"All right," he said. "Take off your hat and wash your face, Anne. They'd be on to you at home. I've got to pack a few things for my journey and write a couple of letters. Get all the paint off while I'm busy. There's soap, towels, and a basin behind that screen."
She came slowly to him and stood looking at him out of her disenchanted young eyes.
"Is this on the square?" she asked.
"Won't you take a chance that it is?" he asked, taking her slim hands and looking her in the eyes.
"Yes.... I'll take a chance with you—if you ask me to."
"I do." He patted her hands and smiled, then released them. "Hustle!" he said. "I'll be ready very soon."
He wrote first to Cleland: