"Shall we go?"
"Yes, I am ready."
They went out into the street Marie knew now why he had brought her out this afternoon, why he had suggested that pearl necklace; it was a kind of offering in exchange for his freedom for the next few weeks.
She supposed that most women would have acted differently; would have refused to be left at home—would have cried and made a scene; but the heart of Marie Celeste felt like a well from which all the tears have been drawn.
Let him go! What use to try and keep him an unwilling prisoner?
She passed a sleepless night turning things over in her tired mind, trying to find a way out of the entanglement which seemed to grow with every passing day.
Surely there must be some way out that was not too unhappy! Surely there must be women in the world sufficiently clever to do what hitherto she had failed to do!
In the end she decided to write to Dorothy Webber. After all, they had been good friends, and it would be pleasant to see her again. She wrote the following morning, and asked Dorothy to come to London. "Chris is going away," she wrote. "So I would love to have you for company. Shall we go to Wales or Ireland for a little trip?"
She asked the question, parrot-like, in obedience to her husband's suggestion, not in the very least because she wished to leave London, or to visit any place. Wales or Ireland might have been Timbuctoo or Honolulu for all she cared.
She told Miss Chester what she had done.