"Elcot," she asked, "do you think I oughtn't to have gone away?"
The man seemed to consider this.
"No," he answered, "I don't think that, so long as you were able to manage it with the little help I could give you." He paused a moment, and looked puzzled, for there was a suspicion of heightened color in Florence's face. "On the whole, I'm glad you went, if you enjoyed the visit."
"You don't seem very sure. Wasn't it rather dull for you here?"
It was, so far as he could remember, the first time she had displayed any interest on this point, and he smiled.
"Oh, I had the place to look after, as usual. It's fortunate that it occupies a good deal of my attention."
Florence leaned forward suddenly.
"Elcot, won't you tell me exactly how much you mean by that?"
It was a moment or two before Hunter answered.
"Well," he said gravely, "since you have suggested it, perhaps I better had, though it means the dragging in of questions we've talked over quite often already. I took up farming because I couldn't stand the cities and it seemed the thing I was most fitted for. On that point I haven't changed my opinions. Where I did wrong was in marrying you." He checked her with a lifted hand as she was about to speak. "If you had never met me, you would probably have taken the next man with means who came along."