"No. He can, if he chooses, get a formal order for you to go back, but it won't be enforced. It will only give him a right to a legal separation--not to a divorce, of course--just a separation." "You're sure they can't make me go back?" "Oh, quite. That's settled." "That's what I wanted to be quite clear about." She stepped up to his chair and laid her hand on his shoulder. "You're still against me?" "Oh, how can I tell? The heart knows its own bitterness--nobody else can." She pressed his shoulder in a friendly fashion; she was comforted by his half-approval. At least it was not a condemnation, even though it refused the responsibility of sanction. "Of course he needn't give you any money." "I've got my own. You got it settled on me and paid to myself." "It's very little--about a hundred and fifty a year. I want you to look at all sides of the business." "Of course you're right. But there's only one to me--to get away, away, away!" "It's just about five years since you came here with your mother--about the marriage-settlement. I thought it rather rough you should come to me, I remember." "Mother didn't know about the--the sentimental reason against it, Hobart--and it doesn't matter now, does it? And poor mother's beyond being troubled over me." "Where will you go--if you do go?" "I am going. I shall stay with the Aikenheads for a bit--till I'm settled on my own." "Have you hinted anything about it to--him?" "To Cyril? No. I must tell him. Of course he knows that I'm silly enough to think that I'm unhappy." "It'll be an awful facer for him, won't it?" She walked round the table and stood looking at him squarely, yet with a deprecatory droop of her mouth. "Yes, it will," she said. "Awful! But, Hobart, I not only have no love left, I've no pity left. He has crushed a great deal in me, and he has crushed that with the rest." Gaynor's hands played feebly with his big pad of blotting-paper. "That it should happen to you of all people!" he mumbled. His air expressed more than a lament for unhappiness; as well as regretting sorrow, he deplored something distasteful. But Winnie Maxon was deaf to this note; she saw only sympathy. "That's your old dear kindness for me," she smiled, with tears in her eyes. "You won't turn against me, anyhow, will you, Hobart?" He stretched out his hand to meet hers. "No, my dear. Didn't I love you once?" "And I do love your dear round face and your honest eyes. Yes, and the nose you used to be unhappy about--because it was a pug--in those very old days; and if my ship gets wrecked, I know you'll come out with the life-boat. Good-bye now, I'll write to you about it."