"Why did you not write and tell me that you found it so terribly lonely?"
She shook her head, and then said timidly, "It wasn't the loneliness."
"What was it then?"
She looked at him nervously and said nothing.
"Well, what was it?"
"I ... I thought ... you weren't coming back."
"But, you foolish girl, didn't I write and say I was?"
"Yes, you wrote and said, 'I am coming perhaps in about ten days,' and I went to the Cats' Bridge, and there I waited day and night-day and night--but you didn't come. And then three weeks afterwards you wrote again, 'I shall come home perhaps in about ten days.' And you never came, and then I thought you were only putting me off with promises ... so as not to break it to me suddenly that you weren't coming back at all. And I thought you repented being good to me, because I didn't deserve it, and because I----" She broke off and buried her face for a moment in her hands.
"But your letter was so sensible."
"Yes, Herr," she faltered. "Would it have done for me to write differently?"