And the “poor weak woman” lay at his side, staring at the stars with eyes that held bigger worlds than they.  After the heat of the day to lie here in the coolness, with the night breeze fanning her hair, tickling her bare feet and arms, was very delightful.  Several times she pressed her hands tight down on the mattress and once she pinched herself.  She seemed, in her exhilaration, to be losing weight; she would not have been surprised, if she had found herself floating away to have a real, close-hand look at the Southern Cross.  She had no idea what was going on in Louis’s mind.  No kindly angel whispered to her that she should go in, now, for “swounds and vapours,” and thus bolster up the protectiveness that had come to birth within him that night.  She knew nothing of “swounds and vapours.”  The rather hard women on Lashnagar were never ill and weak until they were ready to drop into death.  Aunt Janet had never been weak save in the matter of the acid drops.  She certainly felt thrilled rather than weak.  She had something of contempt for the weakness of women.  She was very fond of Mrs. King, but her constant complaints about Mr. King’s badness and her aching back did not seem to Marcella to be quite playing the game.  Mrs. King had solemnly advised her, several times, to make Louis think she was not well.  When she had seen her carrying pails of coal quite easily up the stairs she had said, with a shudder: 

“Oh, kid—­you make my back ache to see you!  Why don’t you let him do those jobs?  You ought to lay down on the bed and tell him you feel queer.  Then he’ll be all over you, trying to do all he can for you.”

“I don’t want him to, thanks,” said Marcella concisely.  “Why should he do it any more than me?”

Mrs. King thought she was mad.

But now she felt that they must get away from Mrs. King, from everyone.  She began to shape her letter to her uncle in her mind, and as she did so, realized that she and Louis would be alone together no longer.  They would join the communal life at Wooratonga.  If he failed again—­and she felt that, perhaps, he might fail—­there would be critics.  It came to her that it was quite impossible to go and live with her uncle and the three daughters who were “rather hard.”  She was not ashamed of Louis now; for that she was thankful, but she dreaded that less kindly eyes than hers should see him when he was weak.

She touched him on the cheek with her lips.  He wakened at once.

“What is it, my pet?” he asked anxiously, striking a match and holding it close to her face.

“Louis, I can’t let our baby come to live in Sydney,” she said.

“Well, he isn’t coming to Sydney to-night,” he laughed.

“No.  But I want it settled.  Louis, I was thinking it would be a good plan to ask uncle to let us go and work for him.  But now I feel I can’t go among his people—­”

“You’re afraid of what I’ll get up to?”