"What was it you wanted to say, Mona?" he asked, scarcely looking at her.
"I should like to think that there was something you wished to hear," she replied. "Don't you want to know all that has happened since you left us—about me, about your brother, about your friends, about Lammis? I bought Lammis at the sale you ordered; it is still ours." She gave emphasis to "ours." "You may not want to hear all that has happened to me since you left, still I must tell you some things that you ought to know, if we are going to part again. You treated me badly. There was no reason why you should have left and placed me in the position you did."
His head came up sharply and his voice became a little hard. "I told you I was penniless, and I would not live on you, and I could do nothing in England; I had no trade or profession. If I had said good-bye to you, you would probably have offered me a ticket to Canada. As I was a pauper I preferred to go with what I had out of the wreck—just enough to bring me here. But I've earned my own living since."
"Penniless—just enough to bring you out here!" Her voice had a sound of honest amazement. "How can you say such a thing! You had my letter—you said you had my letter?"
"Yes, I had your letter," he answered. "Your thoughtful brother brought it to me. You had told him all the dear womanly things you had said or were going to say to your husband, and he passed them on to me with the letter."
"Never mind what he said to you, Shiel. It was what I said that mattered." She was getting bolder every minute. The comedy was playing into her hands.
"You wrote in your letter the things he said to me," he replied.
Her protest sounded indignantly real. "I said nothing in the letter I wrote you that any man would not wish to hear. Is it so unpleasant for a man who thinks he is penniless to be told that he has made the year's income of a cabinet minister?"
"I don't understand," he returned helplessly.
"You talk as though you had never read my letter.