She appeared in the doorway as I came up the front walk. She was breathing hard, as though she had been running, and there was a dust streak on the side of her thin face.
"Hello, Arthur," she said when I came up on the porch. She shook my hand as limply as always, and gave me a reluctant duty peck on the cheek, then backed into the house to give me room to enter.
I glanced around the familiar surroundings, waiting for her to blurt out the cause of her telegram, and feeling a little guilty about not having come at once.
I felt the loneliness inside her more than I ever had before. There was a terror way back in her eyes.
"You look tired, Arthur," she said.
"Yes," I said, glad of the opportunity she had given me to explain. "I had to finish my thesis and get it in by last night. Two solid years of hard work and it had to be done or the whole thing was for nothing. That's why I couldn't come four days ago. And you seemed quite insistent that I shouldn't call." I smiled to let her know that I remembered about party lines in a small town.
"It's just as well," she said. And while I was trying to decide what the antecedent of her remark was she said, "You can go back on the morning train."
"You mean the trouble is over?" I said, relieved.
"Yes," she said. But she had hesitated.
It was the first time I had ever seen her tell a lie.