ng you cared about could go afterwards.'

'Go afterwards--What do you mean? I want to take nothing--nothing
except a few clothes.'

'Ah well--it doesn't matter--As you said--nothing matters now.... Well,
I'll go and see Ninnis, and settle about to-morrow.... Then there's
money....' he stopped at the edge of the steps leading down to the Old
Humpey, looking back at her--'what you'll need for the passage--and
afterwards--I know what you'll be thinking; but I can arrange for it
with the Bank manager at Leuraville.'

A mocking demon rose in her.

'Please don't let yourself be inconvenienced. I only want the bare
passage money. And directly I get to England I will pay you back.'

His hands dropped to his sides as if she had shot him. His face was
terrible. At that moment, she could have bitten her tongue out.

'I don't think--you need have said that, Bridget,' and he went slowly
down the steps, and out of her sight like a man who has received a
mortal hurt.

CHAPTER 9

If purgatory could hold worse torture than life held on that last
evening Lady Bridget spent at Moongarr, then neither she nor her
husband would have been required to do any long expiation there. It
would be difficult to say which of the two suffered the most. Probably
McKeith, because he was the strongest. Equally, he showed it the least
when the breaking moment had passed. Yet both husband and wife seemed
to have covered their faces, hearts and souls with unrevealing masks.
No, it was worse than that. Each was entirely aware of the mental and
spiritual barrier, which made it absolutely impossible for them to
approach each other in the sense of reality. A barrier infinitely more
forbidding than any material one of stone or iron. Because it was
living, poisoned, venomous as the fang of some monstrous deadly
serpent. To come within its influence meant the death of love.

There was not much more of the day to get through. Husband and wife
both got through it in a fever of activity over details that seemed
scarcely to matter. He busied himself with Ninnis--first explaining to
the overseer as briefly as he could, the necessity for Lady Bridget's
voyage to England--a necessity that appealed to Ninnis' practical mind,
particularly in the present financial emergency. It surprised him a
little that McKeith should not himself see his wife off; but he also
recognised practical reasons--against that natural concession to
sentiment. On the whole, it rat