"With Joe—about you—New York—everything."
"There wasn't need for a word. Nobody's blabbed. I saw to that. I went to Sprague in New York."
"I told Joe," she confessed. "You didn't come that morning—and I was frightened. I thought if stories were to get to him, I'd best be the one to tell them. So I left at once."
"If you had only waited."
"If you had only got word to me."
They fell into explanation of their several movements, from which
Shelby, white-faced, suddenly cut loose, saying:—
"What does he know? For God's sake, what does he know? What did you tell?"
"Oh, that I met you, had dinner, went to the theatre—"
"Then why—"
"I'm coming to that. While we were away somebody—Mrs. Weatherwax, I suppose—filled Joe full of malicious town gossip about our—our friendship—and he was terrible. Oh, you can't know, you can't know!"