"Were you going to change into your pyjamas at Ostend?"

"My pyjamas? I brought them for Gurney."

"And your sleeping draught was for Gurney?"

"Of course it was."

"And your razors and your toothbrush, too. Oh, John, what's the good of lying? You forgot that I helped Alice Bartrum to pack Gurney's things. You forget that Billy knows."

"Do I? I shan't forget your going back on me; your betraying me," he said.

And for the first time she realised how alone he was; how horribly alone. He had nobody but her.

"Who have I betrayed you to?"

"To Sutton. To McClane. To everybody you talked to."

"No. No."

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"Yes. And you betrayed me in your thoughts. That's worse. People don't always mean what they say. It's what they think."

"What was I to think?"

"Why, that all the damnable things you said about me weren't true."

"I didn't say anything."

"You've betrayed me by the things you didn't say."

"Why should I have betrayed you?"

"You know why. When a woman betrays a man it's always for one reason."

He threw his head back to strike at her with his eyes, hard and keen, dark blue like the blade of a new knife ... "Because he hasn't given her what she wants."

"Oh, what I want--I thought we'd settled that long ago."

"You've never settled it. It isn't in you to settle it."

"I can't talk to you about that. You're too horrible. But I didn't betray you."

"You listened to people who betrayed me. If you cared for me in any decent way you'd have stood by me."

"I have stood by you through thick and thin. I've lied your lies. There isn't one of your lies I haven't backed. I've done everything I could think of to keep people from knowing about you."

"Yet you go and tell Sutton that I've bolted. That I'm a deserter."

"Yes, when it was all over. If you'd got away everybody'd have known. As it is, only Billy and I know; and he's safe."

"You insist that I was trying to get away? I own I thought of it. But one doesn't do everything one thinks of.... No.... Don't imagine I was sick of the war, or sick of Belgium. It's you I'm sick of."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. You had your warning. I told you what would happen if you let me see you wanted me."




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