"When did you come?" she asked.
Peter did not answer. He was still looking at her with those wonderful eyes that always seemed to her too compelling for happy intercourse.
"Electra," he said, and stopped. She had to answer him. There must be some heavy thing to break to her, which he felt unequal to the task of telling unless she helped him. "Electra," he said again, "I didn't come alone. Some one came with me. I wrote you about Tom."
Electra drew her hand away, and sat up straight and chilled. There had been few moments of her grown-up life, it seemed to her, unspoiled by Tom, her recreant brother. In the tumultuous steeple chase of his existence he had brought her nothing but mortification. In his death, he was at least marring this first moment of her lover's advent.
"You wrote me everything," she said. The tone should have discouraged him. "You were with him at the last. He knew you. I gather he didn't send any messages to us, or you would have given them."
"He did, Electra."
"He sent a message?"
"I simply couldn't write it, because I knew I should be home so soon. It was about his wife. He begged you to be kind to her."
"His wife! Tom was not married."
"He was married, Electra, to a very beautiful girl. I have brought her home with me."