“How old was he?” asked the husband.
“When—when I first knew him? Or when he went away?——”
“When you first knew him.”
“When I first knew him, he was twenty-six—now—he’s thirty-one—nearly thirty-two—because I’m twenty-nine, and he is nearly three years older——”
She lifted her head and looked at the opposite wall.
“And what then?” said her husband.
She hardened herself, and said callously:
“We were as good as engaged for nearly a year, though nobody knew—at least—they talked—but—it wasn’t open. Then he went away——”
“He chucked you?” said the husband brutally, wanting to hurt her into contact with himself. Her heart rose wildly with rage. Then “Yes”, she said, to anger him. He shifted from one foot to the other, giving a “Ph!” of rage. There was silence for a time.
“Then,” she resumed, her pain giving a mocking note to her words, “he suddenly went out to fight in Africa, and almost the very day I first met you, I heard from Miss Birch he’d got sunstroke—and two months after, that he was dead——”