She started ever so slightly, and stared at the three plates, as if their number put her out in some intricate calculation.
She submitted, moving uneasily about the place, but busy, folding things and putting them away. He ran upstairs to wash. She could hear him overhead, splashing, rubbing, and brushing.
When he came down again she was sitting on the sofa with her hands clasped in front of her, her head bent, her eyes fixed, gazing at the floor.
"I suppose we've got to wait for Vi," he said.
"I say, it's a quarter to nine, you know," he said, presently.
"My word! I should think I was just. D'you think she's gone to Mother and had supper there?"
She shook her head. There was a slight spasm in her throat as if the idea of food sickened her.
"Nothing--nothing. I'm all right. I don't want to eat anything, that's all. I must be going soon."
"You're tired out, Win. You've got past it. Tell you what, I'll make you a cup of tea."
She rose, and yet she did not go. He had never known Winny so undecided.
Then suddenly she stooped. On the floor of the hearth rug she had caught sight of some bits of blue silk left from Violet's sewing. With an almost feverish concentration of purpose she picked up each one of the scraps and snippets; she threw them on the hearth. Slowly, deliberately, spinning out her thread of time, she gathered what she had strewed; she gathered into a handful the little scraps and snippets of blue silk, powdered with the gray ashes from the hearth, and dropped them in the fire, watching till the last shred was utterly destroyed.
There was a faint cry overhead and Ransome started up.
The cry or his movement clenched her resolution.
And as she went she drew a letter in a sealed envelope from the bosom of her gown and laid it on the table.
"Vi said I was to give you that if she wasn't back by eight. It's nine now."
He stared and let her go. He waited. He was aware of her footsteps in the front room upstairs, of the baby crying, and of the sudden stilling of his cry. Then he opened the letter.
He read in Violet's tottering, formless handwriting:
/# <sc>Dear Randall,</sc>--This is to let you know I've gone and that I'm not coming back again. I stuck to you as long as I could, but it was misery. You and me aren't suited to live together, and it's no use us going on any more pretending. If you'd take me back to-morrow I wouldn't come. I can't live without Leonard Mercier, nor he without me. I dare say you know it's him I've gone with.