that boy at Melle--"

John's mouth opened as if he were going to say something. He
seemed to gasp.

"--No, you didn't or you wouldn't have left him. Whatever your funk was
like, you couldn't have left him if you'd cared, any more than I could
have left _you_."

"He was dead when I left him."

"He was still warm when I found him. Billy thought you were bringing him
away. He says he wasn't dead."

"He lies, then. But you'll take his word against mine."

"Yes," she said simply. "And he says he _didn't_ tell you I was going
on with him. You don't care for _me_. If you'd cared you couldn't
have left me."

"I thought you said if it was a toss up between you and a wounded man--?
There were wounded men in that car."

"There was a wounded man with me. You left _him_.... Don't imagine I
cared about myself, whether I lived or died. It was because I cared about
you. I cared so awfully."

He jerked out a laugh. One light, short sound of dismissal and contempt.

XV

That light sound he made had ended it.

She remembered it afterwards, not as a thing that hurt her, but as an
unpleasant incident of the day, like the rudeness of a stranger, and yet
not to be forgotten. It had the importance of extreme finality; his
answer to everything, unanswerable.

She didn't care. She had ended it herself and with so clean a cut that
she could afford to let him have that inarticulate last word. She had
left him nothing to do but keep up his pretence that there had never been
so much as a beginning. He gave no sign of anything having been between
them, unless his attitude to Sutton was a sign.

It showed the next day, the terrible Sunday that was ending everything.
Yesterday he had given orders that Charlotte should drive Sutton while he
drove by himself. To-day he had changed all that. Gwinnie was to drive
Sutton and Charlotte was to go out alone. And he had offered himself to
McClane. To McClane. That gave her the measure of his resentment. She
could see that he coupled her with Sutton while he yet tried to keep them
apart. He was not going to have more to do with either of them than he
could help.

So that she had hardly seen or heard of him that day. And when the solid
work began she found that she could turn him out of her mind as if he had
never been there. The intolerable burden of him slipped from her; all
morning she had a sense of cold clearness and lightness; and she judged
that her deliverance was complete.