She decided, privately, to spare him the misery of it all by sending him off into the Bush on an errand for Mr. Twist as soon as she was taken ill.  But her scheme fell through.  All one day of blue and silver in June, a winter’s day with keen exhilaration in the air, she stayed with him in the clearing, burning the branches as he hewed them down.  She felt scarcely alive.  Her body was a queer, heavy, racked and apprehensive thing down on the ground.  She watched it slowly walking about, dragging faggots of gorse fastened together by the swag-straps which she loosened as she cast the branches cracking and creaking into the flames.  Her mind was restless, a little fey.  Louis, seeing something of her uncertainty, stopped work early, and they walked home slowly over the cleared land that was now being ploughed.

“I feel proud of it, don’t you?” she said, looking back.  He nodded, watching her anxiously.

As she was making the tea pain, quite unbearable, seized her.  She got out on the verandah so that he should not see her.  After a while it passed and, looking white, she came back into the room.

“I was going across to the Homestead to-night.  Jerry’s got a new record and wants to try it on us.  But I feel tired.  Will you ask Mrs. Twist to come and have a gossip?” she said casually.

The pain came back, quite astonishing her.  She had heard that it was horrible, but had not expected it to be quite so horrible as this.  Her mind had only room for one thought—­that Louis must not suspect—­or, in his anxiety; he would lose grip on himself and make away for Cook’s Wall and oblivion.  Going into her bedroom she took pencil and paper and wrote a note to Mrs. Twist, who understood the plot and was ready to invent some lost sheep for Jerry and Louis to hunt up.

“Can you come up?  I think it’s happening to me.  Please send Louis away,” she wrote, and folded the note into an envelope which she fastened down.  That moment she found herself crying out without her own volition.  She slammed the door and lay down on the floor inside it, to barricade it against Louis.  She heard his steps coming along the verandah and clenched her hands fiercely over her mouth.

“Did you cry out then, dear?” came his voice as he pushed at the door.  Feeling an obstruction he pushed all the harder:  she could not speak, but he took in at a glance her twisted figure and as he bent over her, shaking with fright, she caught at his hands.

“I thought I’d do it all by myself, but I can’t bear it,” she gasped.

“Oh my darling,” he cried, lifting her in his arms and holding her tight.  “How long has this been going on?”

It was some time before she was able to speak.  In the bleak aloneness of pain she was very glad of his presence.

“All day—­only I didn’t want you to know,” she said.  He groaned.

“For fear it’d bowl me over?  Oh God—­”

“I’d a plot to send you away.  But I’ll be glad to know you’re not very far!  Will you go for Mrs. Twist, Louis?  It will be back in a minute.”