“‘Well,’ Phoebe said, ‘you might have found out and followed me. But I promise never to run away again, Peter dear, never.’
“Turner, my reeling intelligence swerved like a shot bird.
“‘Do you mean, Phoebe, that you ran away from me?’
“‘Yes, didn’t I?’ she answered.
“‘But I ran away from you,’ I said. ‘I walked out of the hotel on that dreadful afternoon we quarrelled so, and I never went back. I went to America. I was in America nearly four years.’
“‘Do you mean you ran away from me?’ she cried.
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘didn’t I?’
“‘But that is exactly what I did—I mean, I ran away from you. I walked out of the hotel directly you had gone—I never went back, and I’ve been abroad thinking how tremendously I had served you out, and wondering what you thought of it all and where you were.’
“I could only say ‘Good God, Phoebe, I’ve had the most awful four years of remorse and sorrow, all vain, mistaken, useless, thrown away.’ And she said: ’And I’ve had four years—living in a fool’s paradise after all. How dared you run away, it’s disgusting!’
“And, Turner, in a moment she was at me again in her old dreadful way, and the last words I had from her were: ‘Now I never want to see your face again, never, this is the end!’