“No, my pepper pot, I won’t pretend I didn’t know it. But I thought—I had a strong impression—I was mistaken, of course, but I thought that—”

“That what?”

His face altered.

“That it was she,” he said below his breath.

I stared at him uncomprehending.

“She looked like it,” he went on more to himself than to me. “She had a sweet face. I thought it might be she. But it was not.”

Silence fell on us.

At last I said:

“Perhaps you will be interested to hear that she and I have made it up.”

“I am,” he said, and his dull eyes lightened, “if you are sure she is the right woman; really sure, I mean.”