“I thought perhaps he was at home still.”
“At home! He may be. I don’t know where he is. I have not the least idea. It is no concern of mine.”
“Then he did not return after all?” Florence said, bewildered. Mrs. North looked at her for a moment in silence. Then she got up and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, which was covered with flowers and bric-à-brac.
“Mrs. Hibbert,” she said, and it seemed as if her lips moved reluctantly, but she showed no other sign of emotion—“you know—what has happened to me, don’t you?”
“No,” answered Florence, breathlessly, and she stood up too. Mrs. North glanced quickly at the door, almost as if she expected to see her visitor flee towards it.
“Mr. North divorced me,” she said, very slowly.
“I didn’t know,” Florence answered, and began to put on her glove.
“I thought you didn’t,” and there came a bitter little laugh. “I knew you didn’t; and yet, deep down in the bottommost corner of my heart, I hoped you did.”
“You must forgive me for saying that, if I had, I should not have come, though I am very, very sorry for you.”
“As a judge is when he sends a prisoner into solitary confinement, or to be hanged, and turns away to his own comfortable life?” Florence buttoned her glove. “And you will never come and see me again, of course?” she added, with another little burst.