"Very good indeed," she answered, smiling. "And you used to come to the shop." pursued Will.
"And I looked forward to it. There was something human in your way of talking to me."
"I hope so."
"Yes, but—it made me ask myself that question. I comforted myself by saying that of course the shop was only a temporary expedient; I should get out of it; I should find another way of making money; but, you see, I'm as far from that as ever; and if I decide to go on shopkeeping—don't I condemn myself to solitude?"
"It is a difficulty," said Bertha, in the tone of one who lightly ponders an abstract question.
"Now and then, some time ago, I half persuaded myself that, even though a difficulty, it needn't be a fatal one." He was speaking now with his eyes steadily fixed upon her; "but that was when you still came to the shop. Suddenly you ceased—"
His voice dropped. In the silence, Bertha uttered a little "Yes."
"I have been wondering what that meant—"
His speech was a mere parched gasp. Bertha looked at him, and her eyebrows contracted, as if in sympathetic trouble. Gently she asked:
"No explanation occurred to you?"