"Were you wounded badly?" she asked.
"I got out of it jolly easily, I suppose," he replied; "and I was lucky too—all the bones were set before I recovered consciousness."
"He doesn't tell me he is glad to see me," she reflected. "Of course, he hates me now. How can it be otherwise? When we last met, I was just cruel to him, and I hurt him all I was able."
"I am so glad you are better," she said aloud.
"It's awfully good of you. Won't you sit down?"
They might have been mere acquaintances from the way they spoke, but each felt that the moment was tragic.
"The doctor tells me that in a week, or a fortnight at the outside, I shall be ready to go back," Bob continued. "There's nothing the matter with me now, except weakness."
He knew that all this was not what he wanted to say, or what he ought to say, but somehow the right words would not come. He felt awkward and constrained in her presence. "If she's engaged to Trevanion," he reflected, "it must be painful for her to see me. I wonder if she knows nothing about Trevanion. I wonder if—if she knows what I did."
Nancy did not sit down as he had asked her, but stood awkwardly; she was picking a scrap of lint to pieces, nervously, and with twitching fingers.
"Bob," she said presently, "I want you to forgive me. I insulted you down in Cornwall—you remember that night at the Public Hall. You see, I didn't know that you intended to enlist."