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?"
"Not a bit, now.
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