We had breakfast at Rylstone. After that Mary talked a little, but still in a hard, cold way. She wondered how things were at home, and hoped it would rain soon. She said the weather looked and smelt like the beginning of a drought. Hanging out blue lights, I thought. Then she'd be silent for miles, except to speak to the children; and then I got a suspicion that she was talking at me through them, and it made me wild, and I had a job to keep from breaking out. It was during that journey that I first began to wonder what my wife was thinking about, and to worry over it—to distrust her silence. I wished she'd cry, and then it struck me that I hadn't seen tears in Mary's eyes for God knows how long—and the thought of it hurt me a lot.
We had the carriage to ourselves after Dungaree, and Haviland was the next station. I wished we could have passed Haviland by moonlight, or in the evening, instead of the garish morning. I thought it would have been more likely to soften Mary. I'd rehearsed the business, half unconsciously, humbugging myself, as men will. I was going to be very silent, and look extra sad, and keep gazing out of the window, and never look at Mary, and try, if possible, to squeeze some suspicious moisture into my eyes, as we passed the place. But I felt by instinct that my barneying and pleading and bluffing and acting and humbugging days were past—also my bullying days. I couldn't work on Mary's feelings now like I used to. I knew, or thought I knew, that she saw through me, and felt that she knew I knew it. Most men's
