"I understand," she said.
Potch took her gaze steadily, but with troubled eyes.
"I wish ... somehow ... I needn't 've done what I did," he said.
"You'd have hated her, if you had gone back on the men—because of her."
"That's right," Potch agreed.
"And—you don't now?"
"No."
"I saw her—Maud—in New York ... before I came away," Sophie said slowly. "She was selling opal...."
"Did she show you the stones?"
"That's just what Michael asked me," Sophie said.