“I ought to have told you at once,” she said. “I ought to have told you last night.” Another pause. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t have come again this morning.”
“Yes, I should!” he asserted eagerly. “If you’re in a hole, you’re in a hole. What difference could it possibly make whether you were a widow or not?”
“Oh!” she said. “The wife of a convict... you know!” He felt that she was evading the point.
She went on: “It’s a good thing my three old ladies don’t know, anyhow...! I’d no chance to tell you this morning. You were too much for me.”
“I don’t care whose wife you are!” he muttered, as though to himself, as though resenting something said by some one who had gone away and left him. “If you’re in a hole, you’re in a hole.”
She turned and looked at him. His eyes fell before hers.
“Well,” she said. “I’ve told you. I must go. I haven’t a moment. Good night.” She held out her hand. “You don’t want me to thank you a lot, do you?”
“That I don’t!” he exclaimed.
“Good night.”
“But—”