"That was very ingenious of you."
"So I thought," he rejoined modestly.
"And what did she say?"
"She said with scarcely a pause that she had sent you out of town to give you time to come to your senses, and it was quite futile for me to question her, as she had not the faintest intention of revealing your whereabouts."
Ernestine breathed again.
"I said in the note I left behind for her that she wasn't to worry about me. I had gone into the country to get away from my troubles."
"That was ingenious, too," he commented. "I think, if you ask me, that we have come out of the affair rather well."
"We have all been remarkably subtle," she said, with a sigh. "But I don't like subtlety, you know. It's very horrid, and it frightens me rather."
"What are you afraid of?" he said.
"I don't know. I think I am afraid of going too far and not being able to get back."