She nodded listlessly.
"Who has not heard?" As they huddled in the shelter of the monument she brooded over the plain below wherein the canal, livid, yet unfrozen still, half girdled the town in a serpentine fold. Each chimney curled a light spiral into the nipping air. "Under every one a wagging tongue," she said. "It's known to every soul except one."
"You mean he's still in the dark?"
"He can't know yet. He took an early train to Centreport. It's some quarry business that could not wait. I remembered it last night—after—after you had gone; so I wrote. It was past two o'clock before I dared steal out to post the letter."
Shelby shrugged into the collar of his ulster.
"I don't deserve all this," he muttered.
"Don't say that. You've done things, too. You've stood for—things; something to pin faith to. You are—"
"I'm your good friend—remember that."
"Friend!"
He drew her farther into shelter, and tucked her furs about her throat.