He studied her awhile, with eyes that seemed to read her secret. "What for?"
"To see the country, I suppose. My last letter was from Colorado Springs."
He dropped back into the chair with a tired sigh of relief. "All right. I'll stay to dinner. Thanks."
She allowed him to rest, asking no more questions than she could help till dinner was over and they had come out again on the portico, so that he might have his cigar in the cool, scented evening air. She was more at ease with him, too, now that she could no longer see the suffering in his pinched, emaciated face.
"Claude, why did you come home?"
He withdrew the cigar from his lips just long enough to say, "Because I couldn't stay away."
"Why couldn't you?"
"Because I couldn't."
"Don't you think it would have been well to make the effort?"
"What was the good of making the effort when I couldn't keep it up?"