He found Bonnie in the bedroom with the drawers of their cabinets open and their trunk in the middle of the floor, its lid thrown back. Clothes lay strewn on the bed. He felt a slow tightening of his scalp and of the skin along the back of his neck. "Bonnie--" She straightened and looked into his face with cold, distant eyes. "I'm packing, Mark," she said. "I'm leaving. I'm going home. The girls are going with me. You can stay until they dig your grave beside Roddy's, but I'm going home." Jorden's face went white. He strode forward and caught her by the arms. "Bonnie--you know there's no way to go home. There won't be a ship for six years. This is home, Bonnie. There's no other place to go." For a moment the set expression of her face seemed to melt. She frowned as if he had told her some mystery she could not fathom. Then her countenance cleared and its blank determination returned. "I'm going home," she repeated. "You can't stop me. I've done all a wife can be expected to do. I've given my son as the price of your foolishness. You can't ask for more." He had to get out. He felt that if he remained another instant just then something inside him would explode under the pressure of his grief. He went to the front door and stood leaning against it while he looked over the landscape that almost seemed to reach out for him in hate as it had for Roddy. So you want her, too! he cried inside himself. Alice came up and tugged at his hand as he stood there. "What's the matter, Daddy? What's the matter with Mama?" He bent down and kissed her on the forehead. "Nothing, honey. You go and play for a moment while I help Mother." "I want to help, too!" "Please, Alice--" He moved back to the bedroom. Bonnie was carefully examining each item of apparel she packed in the big trunk. She didn't look up as he came in. "Bonnie," he said in a low voice, "are you going to leave me?" She put down the dress she was holding and looked up at him. "Yes I'm leaving you," she said. "You've got what you wanted--all you've ever wanted." She looked out towards the fields, shimmering in the heat of the day. "That's not true, Bonnie. You know it isn't. I've always loved you and needed you, and it's grown greater every hour we've been together." "Then you'll have to prove it! Give up this hell-world you want us to call home, and give us back our Earth. If you love me, you can prove it." "It's no test of love to make a man give up the goal that means his life to him. You'd despise me forever if I let you do that to me. I'd rather you went away from me now with the feeling you have at this time, because I'd know I had your love--" Bonnie remained still and unmoving in his arms, her face averted from his. He put his hand to her chin and turned her face to him. "You do love me, Bonnie? That hasn't changed, has it?" She put her head against his chest and rocked from side to side as if in some agony. "Oh, no--Mark! That will never change. Damn you, Ashby, damn you--"