"And you surprised me; I hadn't a notion that you were in the house, or I shouldn't have been there."

"You might have stayed to say good-night, or ask me how I was; I had hurt my foot most frightfully. You didn't show the slightest sympathy."

"How was I to know?"

"That's just it. If you'd only said how-do-you-do, you'd have known. In your hurry you even left your bag behind you."

One could see the man wince; the woman's pause was perhaps to enable him to recover himself.

"Did you see what was in it?"

"The countess did--as probably Jane Simmons told you."

"That woman!"

"That woman! She came to see me the other day."

"What?"