He would not have them. He would not have her, nor her daughter. And Clancy?

She had loved him. She did not . . . unlove him. Somewhere, in this bearded stranger who wore strings on his trousers so the mice would not run up them when carting feed, this man who washed only in the slimy river pools, whose hands were as rough as any workman’s, who just did not see what a proper life should be . . . somewhere there might still be the man that she had married. But she could not — would not — live with the man he was at Overflow. Nor could she let that man destroy all chance of a civilised life for her daughter.

Somehow the unthinkable had become certainty. She would visit Drinkwater for a week — her jewels discreetly packed — so that Margaret’s maid could repair her wardrobe; then visit Maria for two or three months, where Ethelred surely would encourage Maria and herself to order new gowns not from catalogues, but by letter to the dressmaker Flora had used before, as well as the correct clothes for Clementine, so that Flora need not be shamed by out-of-style dresses when she arrived in Sydney.

Because after her stay with Maria, that was where she would go.

She was not leaving her husband, she told herself. She was leaving Overflow, for her daughter’s sake and so that she might keep the remnants of her own self-respect. And, after all, Clancy would escort her to Drinkwater and stay there with her. Perhaps he might throw off the bushman and become the gentleman for a time. He would ride beside the carriage she hoped the Drinkwaters would lend them for the journey to Maria’s too, and stay, at least for a time. He could even join her at the Glossops, if he wished.

She knew he would not. But that would be his choice, not hers. Flora Clancy was not a bolter, not a woman who’d leave her husband. All she was deserting was dust, dirt, dags . . . impossible to live where dags were even spoken of.

She would leave tomorrow. No, it would need to be next week, for a message must be sent to Drinkwater. From there she would send letters to Maria and the Glossops.

But today she would begin to pack.

It was as if a moist breeze finally began to twine from the heat-stricken trickle of what had once been a river. Life would begin again.