'Why was it, then?'
'You're too young to discuss such a story.' He turned away.
'I'm not so young,' said the shaking voice, 'as she was when——'
'Very well, then, if you will have it!' His look was ill to meet, for any one who loved him. 'The truth is, it didn't weigh upon her as it seems to on you, that I wasn't able to marry her.'
'Why are you so sure of that?'
'Because she didn't so much as hint at it when she wrote that she meant to break off the—the——'
'What made her write like that?'
'Why will you go on talking of what's so long over and ended?'
'What reason did she give?'
'If your curiosity has so got the upper hand, ask her.'