'I congratulate you,' she said at last.
'Thank you.'
'I hope you will be very happy.'
'I'm sure I shall.'
She relapsed into silence. It occurred to me that, having posted her thoroughly in my affairs, I was entitled to ask about hers.
'How in the world did you come to be here?' I said.
'It's rather a long story. After my husband died—'
'Oh!' I exclaimed, startled.
'Yes; he died three years ago.'
She spoke in a level voice, with a ring of hardness in it, for which I was to learn the true reason later. At the time it seemed to me due to resentment at having to speak of the man she had loved to me, whom she disliked, and my bitterness increased.