. . . . .

Ellen Johns said, sick, it was horrible, horrible, but, Ewan, you know that that was a lie. It was sickening of you to suggest that they let loose the gas deliberately…. Ewan, it’s just cheating, it’s not Communism!

Chris had said But, Ake, why are you leaving me?

He’d tapped out his pipe by the side of the fire, Just for what I’ve said, mistress: I want a change. So I’ve ta’en on the job of ship’s carpenter, on the Vulture, bound for Newfoundland. That’s all about it.

She’d said But it wasn’t all; what was this stuff about not coming back? And at that the Ake Ogilvie of Segget had awakened, a minute, as he told her why: that he’d never had a minute since his marriage day when he was a free and happy man, aye knowing how she looked on him, thought of him—oh aye, she’d done her best, he knew, it was just that the two of them never should have wed, You were made for somebody different from me, God knows who, neither me nor Colquohoun. But it’s been like hell, we just can’t mix. Lass, do you think I haven’t seen you shiver over things another woman would laugh at or like?

She’d said that that was just foolishness, she’d liked him well and had aye done so. And he’d said she looked bonny standing there, trying to be kind. It was more than kindness he’d once hoped to get; and now they’d speak of the soss no more.

And he’d told her his plans, he was off in three days, and he’d maybe write her, had he anything to write about, when he got to Newfoundland or Canada. He thought of crossing over Canada and taking a look at Saskatchewan, plenty of work there for a joiner, he’d heard. Of what money he made he’d let her have half.

Chris had said quiet she wouldn’t have that, if they parted she’d no need to live off him, they parted for good and all—if at all.

And Ake had nodded, Ay, that would be best.

So, watching from the doorway as he went this last morning, she minded in pity and smiled at him, kind. He hoisted the case on his shoulder and nodded, Well, I’ll away. Ta-ta, mistress.

Her heart was beating high in her breast and her throat felt tight so that hardly she could speak: and all that meant little enough, as she knew. If she tried even now she could keep him by her—who would soon have so few to fall back upon. But he wasn’t for her, she for any man, they’d each to gang their own gait.

She’d finished with men or the need for them, no more that gate might open in her heart, in her body and her soul, in welcome and gladness to any man. Quick and quick in the flying months she passed with hasting feet over ways that once had seemed ever-lasting: the need not only for a lover’s caresses, but the need for anyone’s liking, for care, kind words and safe eyes…. That dreadful storm she’d once visioned stripping her bare was all about her, and she feared it no longer, eager to be naked, alone and unfriended, facing the last realities with a cool, clear wonder, an unhasting desire. Barriers still, but they fell one by one—