“Yes,––I guess probably I should have come, but–––”
Eileen interrupted him.
“Mr. Ralston,––don’t let us fence any more. That’s what everybody does nowadays. It isn’t honest. Can’t we be honest?”
“Of course we can, Miss Pederstone! I am glad you put it so plainly. Now, if you had been in my shoes,––would you have come?”
“Oh, please don’t put it that way. We have gone through too much for that. We know too much of each other for argument.”
“You mean, you know too much about me,” corrected Phil, a little bitterly.
“Yes!––and, believe me or not as you will, I never thought, I never guessed––until––until I saw you that afternoon in the smithy, tired-out, begrimed, your hair awry and your clothes loose about you––I never dreamed that you––that you––that–––”
“That I was the escaped convict you befriended!”
Eileen put her hand on his arm.
“Mr. Ralston,––why do you have to be so callous; why are you so severe with yourself?”