"I'm sorry. I didn't want you to know. I thought Milly wasn't going to tell you."
"She didn't tell me."
Agatha said nothing. She was bound to accept his statement. Of course, he must have known that Milly had broken her word, and he was trying to shield her.
"I mean," he went on, "that whether she told me or not, it's no matter. I knew."
"You—knew?"
"I knew that something was happening, and I knew that it wasn't the place. Places never make any difference. I only go to 'em because Milly thinks they do. Besides, if it came to that, this place—from my peculiar point of view, mind you—was simply beastly. I couldn't have stood another night of it."
"Well."
"Well, the thing went; and I got all right. And the queer part of it is that I felt as if you were in it somehow, as if you'd done something. I half hoped you might say something, but you never did."
"One ought not to speak about these things, Harding. And I told you I didn't want you to know."
"I didn't know what you did. I don't know now, though Milly tried to tell me. But I felt you. I felt you all the time."