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“Let me go.”

“Where?”

“Oh, to get drunk. I don’t care! That’s what I meant to do when you rang up.”

“Listen. It hurts your pride to be dependent on a woman—even one you love. You won’t be dependent. You’ll have your own work. You’ll do well—I know you will. And later we’ll buy a place somewhere and be together again in the country. Oh, how I’d love that—you and I, Rodney, in our own little homestead. And you’d teach me how to be a sheep-farmer, though I’m such a duffer at all those things you know about. Oh, my dear, you do need me! I can help you, I know I can. You said tonight I’d comforted you a little about poor old Nigger. I loved him too. He was so brave and honest—and so are you. And if you leave me now I can’t bear it. I can’t go through it again. I’ve been so lonely—so wretched—wanting you . . . always wanting you. Rodney———”

Suddenly she burst into tears.

In a second his arms had closed round her. He was holding her close—close, his lips on hers.

He was a lost man.