"How do you know?"
"He came up to Mingham to-day and told me." Bob sat down by her, uninvited; certainly the belief in boldness was carrying him far. But he did not quite anticipate the next development. She sprang up, sprang away from his neighborhood, crying,
"Then how dare you come here to-day? Yes, I've got the letter—just an hour ago. Have you come to—to triumph over me?"
"What an extraordinary idea!" remarked Bob in the slow tones of a genuine astonishment.
"You'd call it to condole, I suppose! That's rather worse."
Bob confined himself to a long look at her. It brought him no enlightenment.
"You must see that you're the very——" She broke off abruptly, and, turning away, began to walk up and down.
"The very what?" asked Bob.
She turned and looked at him; she broke into a peevishly nervous laugh. Anybody but Bob—really anybody but Bob—would have known! The laugh encouraged him a little, which again it had no right to do.