"I guess I oughtn't to have done this," he apologized, when he saw that she could listen to him. "I just didn't think—out there. I'll go as soon as you feel better, dear. Where do you want the driver to take you!"
"Home," she said. It was no more than a whisper.
"You mean to Mrs. Darcy's house? Won't that be pretty gloomy for you just now? Better let him take you to your cousins'—or to Miss Emily's. How would that be? I know she'd he mighty glad to have you."
Joan gathered herself together for an effort. It seemed to her, faint as she was, that much depended upon this moment. But for once her eloquence failed her. She could only repeat that she wanted to go home.
Archie understood her trembling better than her speech, perhaps. He, too, began to tremble.
"I—I haven't got any home now, Joan. Only the old attic-room in Poplar Street—"
She cried out, painfully, "Archie! don't you want me any more?..."
In his arms at last, her face pressed roughly against the familiar roughness of his coat, words returned to her. She quoted her husband's sole adventure into poetry:
"A book of verses underneath the roof,
A cup of coffee and an egg, in troof,
And Mrs Neal to cook it up for us—
Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof."
Archibald did his faithful best to laugh; but the effort was not successful.