“I know.”
“At first I wouldn’t believe it. But you sent no word, and the years passed... Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear! Why did you leave me like that?—without a word or a sign from you all these years?”
“I will explain later,” he answered, speaking as calmly as his emotion permitted. “For the present you must just believe that it wasn’t altogether my fault. I was ill for a long time after I left home. It was touch and go. If there is a purpose which governs our destinies, I suppose there was some reason why I should live. Anyhow I pulled through with all the odds against me. And again, when men were dying all about me, my life was preserved—I know not why, nor for what. I have no place in the world. I am just so much dust encumbering the earth. My return is only a distress to you. I come back to find you gone from me.”
She hid her face in her hands and wept afresh. Gone from him! That was how he saw it. She had not been faithful to his memory even.
“Tell me about yourself,” she pleaded. “I want you to fill in the blank. I want to know where you’ve been—all about everything. I don’t understand. Tell me.”
“Not now—nor here,” he said, rising. “It’s a long story; and we should be moving out of this. Can you walk as far as Jim’s office? I think we should be safer there.”
As though reminded by his caution of the disturbance in the streets, which the sight of him had driven temporarily from her thoughts, she stood up and remained in an attentive attitude, listening to the din, which penetrated to their quiet shelter with horrible distinctness. Men were out there a few yards away, fighting and being injured, killed perhaps, as she might have been but for Paul. She lifted frightened eyes to his face.
“What is it?” she asked. “What is happening?”
“It’s a riot,” he answered. “The gaol will be overfull as a result of this noisy disturbance. I hope some of the brutes will get shot.”
“You saved my life, Paul,” she said, looking at him gravely.