“I did not come to you because I could not. I did not write because I was too busy. You should have had patience,” he said, coldly; and, releasing himself from her embrace, he seated her again upon the sofa, and then stood waiting before her.
His coolness, almost amounting to disgust, calmed her more effectually than any words could have done.
She caught her breath back in a sob of pain, and regarded him with wondering eyes.
“And if I had ‘patience,’ how soon would you have come to me?” she asked, with a note of scorn in her voice.
“I don’t know,” he answered, moodily.
“You don’t know! after what I wrote you!” she cried, in breathless astonishment, and with quivering lips.
“Marion,” he said, after a moment’s thought, and with sudden resolution, “I could not have come at all!”
“You—could—not—have—come—at—all!” she repeated, every bit of color forsaking her face at the dreadful words.
“That was what I said,” he replied, sullenly, and feeling as he had never in his life felt before, with those eyes, so full of horrible anguish, fixed upon him.
“George, what do you mean? Surely not what you say?”