“And yet,” I said, “you could think of leaving him?”

She moaned.  “You fool—­you fool—­that’s why I’m thinking of it.”

She pressed her hands to her eyes as if she shut back the sight of him.

“You aren’t thinking of it,” I said.  “You haven’t left him.  You’ve only been for a good long walk to Fittleworth, and we’ve come to fetch you back in the car.”

“Haven’t I told you that I can’t and won’t use Jimmy’s car?”

“You can’t use it to run away from him in; but you can very well use it to go back to him.”

“I’m not going back to him,” she said.  “Can’t you see that I’ve burnt my boats?”

“You may have burnt the old ones, Viola,” I said.  “But you can build new.”

“You must give me time, Wally.  It’ll take a long time.  And you don’t understand me.  I want to get away from Jimmy.  That’s why I’m going away now, while he isn’t there.  That’s what I mean by burning my boats.  If I go back to him—­if I see him—­I shall never get away.  I shan’t have the courage.  I shall just crumple up with the first sight of him—­with the first word he says—­”

“Why not,” I said, “crumple up?”

She lifted her head as I had seen her lift it before.

“Because,” she said, “I wish to be straight.”

I asked her if running away behind Jimmy’s back was her idea of straightness?  To which she replied that my rectitude was excruciating and that I’d twist anything to a moral purpose, but it was twisting all the same.  Couldn’t I see that the awful thing would be to come sneaking back and pretend to Jimmy that she hadn’t run away from him?—­If that was my idea of straightness she was sorry for me.

I said, “My dear child, you must see that running away by yourself is one thing, and running away with Charlie Thesiger is another.  It would be all very well if Charlie hadn’t got into that train.”

She wanted to know what that mattered when she had got out of the train?  I suggested that the people who saw Charlie get in hadn’t seen her get out, and that she must look at the thing as it appeared to other people.

“Look,” I said, “at the facts.  Mrs. Jevons walks to Selham Station for the London train.  Captain Thesiger joins her there, presumably by pre-arrangement, leaving by Midhurst station so that they may not be seen going away together.  She is, however, seen entering his compartment at Selham.  At Fittleworth she is seized with prudence and with panic.  She is seen getting out on to the platform.  And she is seen two hours later following the Captain up to London by the next train.”

She seemed to be considering it.

“How many people,” she said, “know that Charlie was in that train?  People that matter—­I don’t mean you and Norah.”

“Your butler, your parlourmaid, your housemaid, your cook, your gardener—­by this time—­and Baby’s nurse—­”

("And Baby,” she interrupted.)