.

"Want to kill yourself, and have the child killed too kid?" she cried
before she reached her. "What the nation do you think you're doing?"

"I won't be paid for work that isn't done," said Marcella ungraciously.
She was so sore, so aching that she knew to her disgust, that she would
be crying weakly on Mrs. Twist's shoulder if she let herself be even
commonly polite.

"Come on, kid, and have a cup of tea with me," said Mrs. Twist gently.
"I know what it is to feel as if you could chew anyone's head off. It
always takes me like that the last few weeks. Where's your boss?"

"He--Oh, I don't know. I've got to do his work. I daren't let him think
he can shirk like this! He'll never get back again if I make him think
it doesn't matter. Mrs. Twist, I'm tired of it!" she cried with sudden
fierce intensity. "Never, never, never for a minute dare I be tired and
weak; why I daren't even _think_ tired for a minute. Always I've to be
strong for him! Oh--" she suddenly choked and, flinging her spade aside,
sat down clumsily on the ground, her face buried in her hands. "If only
Father could come alive for a few hours--and thump him!"

Mrs. Twist made no enquiries about Louis; she had guessed a good deal
and, by excessive tact, got Marcella to go across to the Homestead with
her and rest for the remainder of the afternoon. But she was back at her
work again next morning grimly determined to show Louis that if he
shirked his job she would do it for him.

That night he came home--pale and haggard, unshaven and unwashed. He had
spent the ten pounds until he had just enough left to buy two bottles of
whisky. With these he had wandered off on the home road, to sink to
sleep when he could go no further and waken to another solitary orgy.

She had been working till after dark, in spite of Mrs. Twist's
remonstrances, to which she answered rudely and impatiently. At last the
elder woman thought it less wearing to the girl to leave her alone; she
guessed that she would faint with physical weariness before she had got
over her mental misery. Louis could see the red glow in the sky for the
last two miles of his dazed tramp; it led him homewards, muttering to
himself about a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. He looked into the
house and saw that she was not there. He had not known, till he saw the
empty rooms, with her frock hanging over the hammock, her nightgown
neatly folded on the shelf, her books and a pannikin half full of cold