I paused for a moment to let my words get weight, and then, suddenly, I had it out.
"Why did you tell Cruikshank," I asked, "that I was coming to live in the cottage next year?"
She knew she was in a corner, and she sought to gain time.
"When did he tell you that?" she inquired.
"Some little while ago in the garden. Only after he'd mentioned it did he remember that you had told him not to speak of it. Had he wilfully broken the confidence I shouldn't have said anything about it. But no blame can attach itself to him, and I want to know."
She looked at me for a long time before she answered, after which there came from her one of those little flashes of wisdom wherewith at moments she surprises you so much.
"When a woman hopes for a thing very much," she answered, "she always says that it is going to be. Every woman can bear disappointment. She has to bear it all her life. But you kill her when you take away hope. Men always say the reverse, because they know they can never bear the disappointment. That's the sort of reason why I told Cruikshank you were coming here next year."
That was all the success I got out of my surprising her, an expression of sympathy and appreciation for myself so delicately conveyed that it robbed me of all power to wonder whether it were the truth. She wanted me to come and live there. I wondered then if, when I got back to London, she would accept from me the present of one of those Victorian sun-bonnets to wear when she walks about on these cliffs. On the spur of the moment I asked her.
She laughed out loud, and said I was the oddest man she had ever met. It did not seem so odd to me.
"Will you let me send you one?" said I.