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She’d lied to Rodney when she’d let him think she didn’t care. She knew that she loved him, as she believed she would never love any other man. But must she accept the added humiliation of his knowledge of that fact? Surely some rags of pride might be left to her. She went to her room soon after they reached the homestead. She meant to cook the breakfast, she announced, and must get to bed early. Vera protested feebly, but Ann was firm. She enjoyed cooking, she asserted, and she had plenty of time on her hands now that the little girls were not having lessons. Holmes was writing in the smoking-room, and Vera remained with Waring on the veranda. Ann undressed and got into bed. She could pretend to be asleep if Vera came to her room. But Vera did not come. The lights went out in the homestead, and Ann remained hour after hour, wide awake, staring into the darkness.

What was she to do now? She couldn’t stay on here, seeing Rodney every day—that would be more than she could bear. She must get away. But where? Take another situation as nursery governess? No, she turned with distaste from the idea of having to live in such intimate fashion with any family again. Yet she must do something for her living. What? And then as though she had summoned some magic to her aid, she saw herself in a hat shop in Wairiri. More than once she had been told by the women on the coast stations that they could get nothing they liked in the little town; and they had all admired the hats she wore. She had enough capital to start in a small way, and she could get some place with a room behind or above the shop, in which she could live by herself. That was what she wanted! To be alone.