Explore "Ultima Thule" by Henry Handel Richardson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On one of the numerous packing-cases that strewed the rooms--now just so much soiled whitewash and bare boards--Mary sat and waited for the dray that was to transport boxes and baggage to the railway station. Her heart was heavy: no matter how unhappy you had been in it, the dismantling of a home was a sorry business, and one to which she never grew accustomed. Besides, this time when they left, one of them had to stay behind. As long as they lived here, her child had not seemed wholly gone; so full was the house of memories of her. To the next, to any other house they occupied, little Lallie would be a stranger.
Except for this, she was as thankful as Richard to turn her back on Barambogie--and he had fled like a hunted man, before he was really fit to travel. For the first time in their lives, the decision to leave a place had come from her; she had made up her mind to it while he was still too ill to care what happened. By the next morning the tale of his doings was all over the town: he would never have been able to hold up his head there again. For it wasn't as if he had made a GENUINE attempt. at. well, yes, at suicide. To the people here, his going out to take his life and coming back without even having TRIED to, would have something comic about it. something contemptible. They would laugh in their sleeves; put it down to want of pluck. When what it really proved--fiercely she reassured herself--was his fondness for her, for his children. When the moment came he couldn't find it in his heart to deal them such a blow.