Desmond looked up as she entered to judge how the years had treated her. Older and more mature, but otherwise unaltered, he decided as he took her hand and shook it.
"You poor man! How pale you are!" she cried. "I only returned home last week to hear that you had been so desperately ill."
"Home?" he asked, in a puzzled voice.
"The only home I have ever known. I have been miserable since I left it," she explained.
"And Custance?" he questioned.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"He is impossible," she said. "I have done my utmost for him, but at last there came a time when I could not go on. We have separated."
"With his consent?" he asked.
"Custance cares for nothing now but that cursed drug. Oh, what a fool I have been," she almost moaned.
There came a painful silence, broken at last by her.