"I ... I have seen her—yes." He spoke without removing his pipe from between his teeth, which might account for the curious thickness of his tone.
"And how is she? All right, I suppose? You see"—Owen laughed rather diffidently—"my return was to be a surprise to her. I wasn't coming for another couple of months, you know, and then all at once I couldn't bear it any longer. I simply had to come."
"But—haven't you corresponded all this time?"
"Well, not regularly. You know Vivian hates writing letters as much as I do; and I couldn't give her any settled addresses while we were moving about, so we agreed that we would not expect much from each other in that way!"
"I see. But—you have heard from her?"
"Oh, yes, now and then. Of course she had my banker's address and could cable to me from time to time. I got one cable from her in December—on my birthday, it was—and she said she was writing, but I never got the letter."
"In December. I see." And so he did—saw a vision of half-unwilling treachery, of hesitating loyalty, of dying faith, which turned his heart sick within him.
"I wrote to her for Christmas, of course, and sent her a card now and then." He seemed to be excusing his own quite allowable slackness in the matter. "You see, I really had no time for letter-writing, and I knew she would understand and forgive me."
"You ... did you tell her you were coming home to-day?"
"Yes. I wired to her a week ago.... I half expected she'd come down to meet me." He laughed shamefacedly. "But you know what her people are. I expect they'd think it frightfully unnecessary to do that. Of course, I'm going there first thing in the morning."