Gilbert followed her into the sitting-room and looked about eagerly.
"When did you come home?" she said slowly. "I did not know you were expected."
"Got homesick, and just came! I wanted to surprise you all," he answered, laughing. "I arrived only a few minutes ago. Just took time to hug my mother, and here I am. Where's Anna?"
The pent-up retribution of two years descended on Alma's head in the last question of Gilbert's. But she did not flinch. She stood straight before him, tall and fair and pale, with the red maple light streaming in through the open door behind her, staining her light house-dress and mellowing the golden sheen of her hair. Gilbert reflected that Alma Williams was really a very handsome girl. These two years had improved her. What splendid big grey eyes she had! He had always wished that Anna's eyes had not been quite so black.
"Anna is not here," said Alma. "She is married."
"Married!"
Gilbert sat down suddenly on a chair and looked at Alma in bewilderment.
"She has been married for a year," said Alma steadily. "She married Charlie Moore of East Exeter, and has been living there ever since."
"Then," said Gilbert, laying hold of the one solid fact that loomed out of the mist of his confused understanding, "why did she keep on writing letters to me after she was married?"
"She never wrote to you at all. It was I that wrote the letters."