"Oh, yes, if you will be so good. I think—I hope—and still I do not know that it can ever be arranged."
As he rose to go he said after an awkward silence, "I seem unfortunate in my questions, but I hope you will not misunderstand me. Has he left you money?"
"Oh, I have money, yes. All I need. I do not misunderstand. You—you are very kind."
He bowed gravely. Then, after another silence, "Of course you know that this will mean quite an absence from home, even if he should turn around and come back as soon as he reaches the other shore." He was adding savagely to himself, "As he will when he hears from me."
"Yes, I know," murmured Margaret, faintly.
"Have you not some elderly friend that you could have with you for a while? I am sure Victor has gone off only in a spirit of pique. He was always impulsive and headstrong. If you could ask some such person—"
She shook her head.
"I am very much alone," she said. Her childish helplessness would have touched a stone. "You see I have no relatives. And Mrs. Kirtley (I am sure she would have come) is ill." She was twisting the telegram with nervous fingers, feeling again that mad desire to scream. She felt sure she would do so if he spoke another sympathetic word.
He turned his eyes away. "I really think you should have some older woman with you, other than your maid—just now."
"My maid is gone," she said, a lump rising in her throat—repeating, "It—leaves me—very much alone."