"Of course you knew I would come; why shouldn't I?" I asked, striving for some outward appearance of self-possession.
"I'm sure I don't think of any reason, if you don't," she countered. "Did you know I was in Denver?"
"Not in Denver, no. But I heard, some time ago, that you had come to Colorado for your health."
"It seems absolutely ridiculous, doesn't it?—to look at me now. But really, I was very ill three years ago; and even now I can't go back home and stay for any length of time. You haven't been back, have you, since your—since you——"
"No; I haven't been back."
She was rolling her filmy little lace handkerchief into a shapeless ball, and if I hadn't known her so well I might have fancied she was embarrassed.
"I can't endure to think of that dreadful time four years ago—it is four years, isn't it?" she sighed; then with a swift glance of the man-melting eyes: "You hate me savagely, don't you, Bert?—you've been hating me all these years."
"No," I said, and it was the truth, up to that time. I knew that the feeling I had been entertaining for her had nothing in it so robust as hatred. There was no especial need for palliating her offense—far less, indeed, than I knew at that moment; yet I did it, saying, "You did what you thought you had to do; possibly it was what your father made you do—I don't know."
She was silent for a moment before she began again by asking me what made me change my name.
"My name isn't Herbert," I explained; "it never was. I think you must know that I was christened 'James Bertrand,' after my father."