But he stood right in their path.
"You were very cruel," the musical voice went on. "You never seemed to give a thought to all I was suffering."
Meg met the sleepy eyes, that used to thrill her very soul, with a look of scornful amusement in hers that was certainly the very last expression he had ever expected to see in them.
She had always dreaded this moment.
Realising the power this man had exercised over her, she always feared that should she meet him again the old glamour would surround him; the old domination be reasserted. She forgot that in five years one's standards change.
Now that she did meet him she discovered that he held no bonds with which to bind her. That what she had dreaded was a chimera. The real Walter Brooke, the moment he appeared in the flesh, destroyed the image memory had set up; and Meg straightened her slender shoulders as though a heavy burden had dropped from them.
The whole thing passed like a flash.
"You were very cruel," he repeated.
"There is no use going into all that," Meg answered in a cheerful, matter-of-fact tone. "Good-bye, Mr. Brooke. We are most grateful to you for not running over William, who is," here she raised her voice for the benefit of the culprit, "a naughty—tiresome dog."
"But you can't leave me like this. When can I see you again—there is so much I want to explain...."