Startled, Carlisle looked up.
"On--Monday?... Why--I--"
"Not breaking your confidence, of course--just telling him, in a general way, to keep his courage up, that I--I thought good news was on the way.... It was without authority. I realized that. And yet I felt so sure that--when you had had a little time to think--that would be what you would wish. In fact, of course I knew it...."
Their eyes met, almost for the first time, and a sudden constraint fell upon the girl.
"But I don't see," she said, with some difficulty--"if you telegraphed him that--on Monday--I don't understand--"
"The telegram went astray. I went to the office here last night and had them find out. It should have reached Weymouth the first thing yesterday morning. It didn't arrive till about three in the afternoon. But even then.... You see, he could hardly have expected a reply to his letter till Wednesday. That's to-day--"
These two sat looking at each other: and Cally's tongue was no longer free as a hurt child's. She seemed not to find it possible to speak at all now. The young man from the other world was going on, with his strange composure.
"So you see how much was pure blind chance, that couldn't be guarded against. If he had only waited.... If he had only trusted you--two hours longer...."
Surely he had more to say, much more; yet he ended abruptly, speech being evidently not desired of him. The girl had suddenly dropped her face into her hands.
Cally did not want to look at this man any more; could not bear it indeed. His eyes, which had always seemed gifted to convey hidden meanings, had well outstripped the words of his mouth, triumphing strangely over all that he knew about her. Quite clearly they had said to her just then: "I would have trusted you, you know...." And somehow that seemed sad to her, she did not know why. Why, indeed, should Jack Dalhousie have trusted her?...