He tried to make her explain herself. She only shook her head. It seemed, indeed, as if a single day had thrown them back into all the awkwardness of his early life at Wolfpits, and that she had suddenly taken it into her head to upset the convention under which they had agreed to live. Most of all, she avoided him whenever he spoke of money, and when he brought her his wages at the end of the week she left them lying on the table as though touching them would have burned her fingers. If he had not loved the woman, and her children too, he would have broken away in accordance with his nature. As it was, he hung on, sore and bewildered, wondering what new coldness she could inflict upon him. Another shock awaited her. One day, when Abner was away at work, the postman bicycled up to Wolfpits and handed her a letter. This was so rare an event at Wolfpits that the man waited, as country postmen, who also act as interpreters, often do, to hear its contents. ‘You’ll see by the postmark it’s come from Shrewsbury,’ he said. ‘Yes, so I see,’ she replied, thrusting it into the pocket of her apron. She had already recognised George’s freehand writing. He went away, but she kept the letter in her pocket unopened. She dared not open it; and when at last she did so, the words sent a chill over all her body. ‘_MY DEAR WIFE_,’—_she read, shivering_—‘_Although I may be doing time I’m not yet dead that I know of_. _They say that love is blind_, _but don’t you go imagining that other people haven’t got eyes_. ‘_Your loving husband_, ‘_GEORGE_.’ She was seized with a pain that had scarcely abated when Abner came home at night. She could not bring herself to speak to him. She desired, passionately, to show him the letter, but shame would not let her do so. He, in his turn, was sick of the wretchedness of their present relation, and when the children had been put to bed, he told her so in words that he had chosen for their roughness. She stared at him from the other side of the supper table with grief and resentment in her eyes. ‘If it’s as bad as that, what makes you stay here?’ she said slowly. ‘I like that!’ he replied. ‘You know as well as I do.’ She took fright at this, for she wasn’t sure of his meaning, though she knew in her heart what she wanted him to mean. She was afraid that he would guess at her unspoken admission. ‘_I_ don’t keep you here,’ she said. He got up and walked the room. A hay-moth hurled itself against the shade of the lamp with a sharp ringing sound and fell crippled on the tablecloth. ‘It’s hurt,’ she cried. ‘Kill it!’ Abner crushed the insect with his thumb and threw it in the fireplace. The coppery bloom came off on his fingers. For a moment she was hypnotised watching him. Then she recovered her senses.