“I don’t know that there’s much harm in him,” he allowed, “but I dislike to have guide-book information crammed down my throat second-hand. Never mind them. Do you know that I am going away?”
“No.”
Though she hated herself, she felt the colour leaving her face. And she could not ask when or where.
“But I am. I am off to London.”
“Do you come back here?”
“Well, I hope so, certainly. The only thing likely to stand in the way is a lawsuit in which they sought my services, and I don’t mind confiding to you that the odds are rather against that supposition.”
More than one person had certain fancies of theirs confirmed that afternoon. One went and came like the dull tick of a great clock in Phillis Grey’s brain as she sat in her bedroom late at night. “He—loves—her,—he—loves—her,” was what it said with persistent effort. She had sent him away, and though no one suspected it of her, her heart was sometimes nearly breaking.