But Dot was sitting on the sofa again, fighting with herself far too fiercely to think of old brown coats, indeed, the question conveyed no intelligence to her at all. Out of twenty conflicting emotions, rebellion was by far the strongest. She said, 'I shall go, I shall go,' again and again and again in such stormy whispers, that baby stirred and tossed the linen antimacassar off his hands. Larrie had gone to get dry. 'I shall go,' she repeated with strong emphasis on the last word. 'Bab, bab, bab,' said baby softly. He yawned deliciously and flung up his arms. Dot gave him a hurried pat or two. 'Go to sleep,' she said. 'Googul,' he answered insinuatingly. He struggled into a sitting position and leaned towards her. But she lifted him on to her knee quite unresponsively. There was nothing in her mind but Larrie's command that meant death to her rose-coloured dreams. She hardly recognised baby's presence at all. 'He is not my master,' she said aloud, her eyes full of rebellion. But 'Yes he is,' answered Larrie quietly, as he came in again through the second door. CHAPTER IX A CONFLICT OF WILLS 'What things wilt thou leave me, Now this thing is done?' Wednesday loosened itself from the other pearls and dropped off the string of days into the strange awful place where have fallen all the days that have ever been. Thursday slid along the thread, trembled and fell. Friday moved on to fill its place. Such a little time, and it too, and the things of it would be gone beyond recall for ever. Larrie had grown visibly thinner in the short space. He was staking all the happiness of his life on the issue of this. To him the thing was almost terrible in its plain simplicity. He had looked at it from every point of view, had reasoned it out and thought of nothing else, all through the two waking nights and the long day between. And he could only see two paths for Dot to walk in, one that was right and would lead to happiness once more, and one that was so utterly wrong that she would step into it not carelessly and unknowingly, but wilfully and with wide open eyes. It could only be love that would make her do another man's bidding rather than his. From that second path he told himself there could be no return. Dot went about with a feverish look in her eyes, and lips almost as set as Larrie's own. She was going to make this strike for her rights, and in future have the independence due to the nineteenth century married woman. Larrie spoke of the irrevocableness of the step. To him it was as grave as life and death. But deep in Dot's heart was the knowledge of her power over him. She called to mind all the quarrels of their wedded life--had he not always forgiven her? Even the times when he had not been the first to make up, her tears and grief had made his arms open for her immediately. She only whispered this to herself, it made her a little ashamed to think of trading on it. Then out loud she told her conscience several things.