"Don't!" he said, "oh, don't! Do forgive me. I don't know what I've said. But I didn't mean it, whatever it was, if it's hurt you. I'll do just what you say. Shall I call that chap back?"
She shook her head and hid her face in her hands.
"Forgive me," he said again. "Oh, don't cry! I'm not worth it. Nothing's worth it. Charles, you brute, lie down." For Charles, in eager sympathy with beauty in distress, was leaping up in vain efforts to find and kiss the hidden face.
"Don't scold him," she said. "I like him." And Edward could have worshiped her for the words. "And, oh," she said, after a minute, "don't scold me, either! I'm so frightfully tired and everything's been so hateful. I thought you'd understand, and that if you cared to find me, you would."
"How could I? You sent no address."
"I did. On the handkerchief. . . . But I suppose you couldn't read it."
"And still," he said, but quite gently now, "I don't understand—"
"Don't you? Don't you see, I thought when you'd had time to think it over you'd be sorry and wish yourself well out of it, and yet feel obliged to go on. And I thought how horrid for you. And how much easier for you if you just thought I'd changed my mind. And then I set out to walk to Seaford and take the train. And then my shoes gave out, and I was so awfully afraid of aunt coming along that way, so that when Mr. Schultz came along it seemed a perfect godsend."
"So that's his foreign and unhappy name?" said Edward. "How did he come to tell it to you?"
"He had to," she said. "I borrowed ten pounds of him. I couldn't have gone to Claridge's without money, you know."