It was fairly well said, but not over well.
"Thanks," she replied, "and forgive my query. There is no need of repeating it."
And it was weeks after before it dawned on him what she wished to find out.
CHAPTER XLV
THE OLD HOME
There was nothing that could depress Winn just now any more than to visit his boyhood home. It had been twelve years since he left the hillside farm, and to return to it, even for a few days and on the errand that called him, was melancholy in the extreme. Then his trip to Rockhaven had not helped his feelings. He had gone there expecting to find Mona, and believing that a few words of explanation would set matters right. He had even planned what to say and how to say it, and in the fulness of his faith in himself and her, believed that she would easily overlook what he now knew was a cruel neglect on his part. Just why he had let his own discouragement rule him so long and in such a way, he could not now understand. And the more he thought of it and saw his own conduct as it was, the worse it seemed. Perhaps she had never received the letter! Perhaps also she had written, and it had failed to reach him. And when he recalled the parting, and that all her happiness and life, almost, seemed to rest on his promise to return, he almost cursed his own stupidity.
Verily, a pearl of great price had been cast at his feet, and he had been too witless to pick it up.
And now she was here in the city, and had been for months. And other men might be looking into her winsome eyes, and whispering of love!
And with these self-reproaches and jealous surmises for company, Winn sped onward toward his boyhood home.