"I verily believe so."
"Good God! I never misjudged you, did I? If you . . . cared then, why ever did you leave me?"
"Because you gave me no time to take it in. But I am sure now that the germ was there. I think your . . . kisses must have waked it into life. That was why they upset me so. And when I came back, I meant to . . . Oh why should we rake it all up again? It hurts too much."
"But I must know everything now, Quita. You meant to tell me,—was that it?"
"Yes. Though I own it was rather late in the day. Then you sprang it upon me with that letter. I detest the man who wrote it, and I always shall. There was just enough of truth in it, and in your bitter reproaches, to make me feel the hopelessness of lame explanations. Besides, your anger frightened me, though I didn't show it; and I simply acted on a blind impulse to escape from the unknown things ahead; to get back to the love and work I could understand."
"My poor darling! What a blackguard I was to you!"
"Hush! You are not to say that."
"I will. It's true. But . . . didn't you care a great deal for the other chap?"
"I imagined I did. Girls can't always analyse new feelings of that sort. I can see now that it was chiefly mental sympathy between us, on my side at least. But I only discovered that when the real thing came—in a flash."
"When was that?" he asked on a note of eagerness.