“It was an exceedingly unintelligent thing—writing that letter.”
“Listen, Evan.... As long as I live I shall be glad you wrote it. I am glad, glad ... to know there is a man capable of—of sacrificing and—maybe dying for——”
“Nonsense!” said Evan. “It was a trap, of course. And I thought my mental caliber was rather larger than that of these people. Very humiliating.” He frowned at her. “Why did you have to come?”
“You ask that?”
“I most certainly do ask it. You had no business to come. Wasn’t my failure to return a sufficient warning?... Why did you take this foolish risk?”
“You don’t know?”
“I want to know,” he said with the severity of a schoolmaster cross-questioning a refractory pupil.
“Must I tell?”
“You must.” Carmel was almost able to see the humor of it. A pathetic shadow of a smile lighted her face.
“I didn’t want to—to tell it this way,” she said. “I——”